


Sacrifices

by LetThereBreLight



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:14:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26251006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetThereBreLight/pseuds/LetThereBreLight
Summary: “Damn it” you whispered softly to yourself in frustration before dropping your head into your hands. You weren’t equipped to cope with this situation sober you thought bitterly. Not that you had recently been able to stomach even the smell of liquor, a fact which had prompted you to confirm your suspicions with that stupid test in the first place.
Relationships: Horacio Carrillo/Reader, Horacio Carrillo/You, horacio - Relationship
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello AO3 community! I've been reading fanfiction for years but am finally feeling brave enough to post something of my own. I'm new to the Narcos fandom but just found myself so inspired by Horacio Carrillo as a character. This might be my small attempt to give this character some of the happiness I think that he was robbed of. Fair warning, I've taken some liberties with both the show timeline as well as character details (Carrillo isn't married in this one, sorry Juliana!) so I hope these can be forgiven/overlooked. This is my first posted work anywhere so please be constructive if you have criticism. I have several more chapters drafted so here's hoping that this is warmly received! Enjoy!

You couldn’t distinguish if the slight ringing in your ears was more from the actual gunshot ringing out so close to you in the alley or from the shock of seeing the man you love kill a child to make a fucking point. As Carrillo commanded the remaining boys to leave with a note of venom in his voice that made it sound completely foreign to you, you felt hot tears forming in the corners of your eyes. You looked away from the dead teen's body and wrung your hands together, determined to stop them from trembling. 

You made eye contact with your partner Javi, finding some scrap of comfort in the haunted look that had settled over his face as well. At least you weren’t being “weak” or “losing your nerve” then. What happened tonight was exactly as fucked up as you believed it was.

The ride back to the school was utterly silent in the back seat, where you and Javi sat on opposite sides, both pretending to survey the city streets passing by the car windows rather than trying to make idle conversation or god forbid eye contact with your fellow passengers in the vehicle. You caught yourself staring at the back of Horacio’s head for too long several times, the feeling of bile rising in your throat at his calm demeanor making you look away each time. 

When Javi took off immediately after arriving back to the base you couldn’t say that you were the least bit surprised. Steve quickly tearing across the lawn after him provided you with the perfect opportunity to rush inside without being grilled about the events of this evening. 

As much as you resented being a woman at times in this career field, it wasn’t entirely without its perks you supposed. Like the private bunk it had afforded you at the school made base you were now being housed at. You had resented the glorified janitor’s closet at first but that had quickly changed with Carrillo’s return from Madrid. You had spent every night you could sneaking him in here during the dead of night to make up for the time lost while he was away.

As you shut the door tonight though you made sure to lock it behind you, wanting no part in any after-hours visit. Your back pressed against the door, you slid to the floor and finally let the tears you had been holding in silently run down your cheeks freely. Your hands clutched at your abdomen which thankfully remained as flat as ever despite the fact that it now housed your deepest secret. The positive pregnancy test from just days ago still hidden away in your dresser drawer, a spot much safer than the garbage for now you had assured yourself as you tucked it into the middle of a pile of folded shirts. 

You eyed the treacherous dresser drawer briefly before fixing your gaze firmly on the bottle of clear liquid sitting atop the piece of furniture. GOD did you crave a drink right now. "Damn it” you whispered softly to yourself in frustration before dropping your head into your hands. You weren’t equipped to cope with this situation sober you thought bitterly. Not that you had recently been able to stomach even the smell of liquor, or any smell actually, a fact which had prompted you to confirm your suspicions with that stupid test in the first place.  


How could you have let this happen? Now THAT was a thought that had gone through your mind countless times over the last few days. You were a damn DEA agent and one of the few successful female field agents currently operating within the agency. You weren’t made for pregnancy and babies, just the next assignment and the cold feel of your service pistol in your hands. You couldn’t imagine a life where cradling a soft newborn would ever provide you with as much satisfaction as securing handcuffs around the wrists of a sicario. 

Yet, even as you told yourself that, a part of you could imagine so clearly loving a beautiful son with his father’s dark wavy hair and deep brown eyes. A boy not so different to the line of them who had sat on their knees shaking in fear in that alley tonight. And that was exactly the problem wasn’t it? Tonight the man you had put on a righteous pedestal for so long had murdered someone’s son right before your eyes, while his own child grew safe within your womb just feet away. You had never thought he would actually pull the trigger when he had pulled out his gun and when he did, you had felt the ground shift beneath your very feet while he had looked as cool and calculating as ever. The man who had pulled that trigger was the father of your child just as much as the man who held you in the dark quiet hours of the night, whispering soft declarations of love into your hair or against your skin. It disturbed you that you weren’t entirely sure how to reconcile the dichotomy that was Horacio Carrillo at the moment and there were no guarantees that you ever would.

You had yet to tell Horacio about the pregnancy, or even your suspicions of there being one. You had always coped best on your own anyway, a leftover coping mechanism from a lifetime of being let down by loved ones, and if he has noticed you pulling away these last few weeks, he hadn’t made it obvious to you. His past determination to bring down Escobar becoming a near-religious crusade in the few months since his return to Colombia. You had initially lauded his return, not just because you loved him and couldn’t be happier to be back in his arms, but because professionally you shared the same goal of bringing Escobar and his sicarios to justice. Carrillo was many things to many people but to you, Javier, and Steve he had remained the best man for the job when it came to leading this operation. His return meant you may see more wins than losses in the coming days, something you could all be grateful for. Tonight hadn’t felt like a win though, at least not one you had wanted to be any part of. 

You took a few calming breaths before attempting to stand, a slight wave of dizziness hitting you as you clutched onto the wall for stability. Another super fun symptom that had crept up on you lately. You made your way over to your bed, toeing off your boots and shrugging off your jacket but not bothering to change your clothes or shut off the bedside lamp before laying down. Not really wanting to be in the dark just now. At least the constant fatigue you had experienced lately was good for something and you would be able to sleep despite the nights disturbing events.

A soft knock followed by a failed attempt to open your door had you cracking open your eyes. A bleary-eyed glance at the clock on your nightstand telling you it was 1:28 am. That meant it was likely only one person and you debated on pretending you hadn’t heard the knock for a moment before a more insistent knock had you getting out of bed to answer the door despite your reservations. As you cracked the door, your eyes met the deep brown ones which had haunted your thoughts all evening. He wasted no time in opening the door further and brushing past you to enter your room which left you annoyed in a way it typically wouldn’t.

You had to control your urge to slam the door as you shut it and softly clicked the lock back into place. You didn’t immediately turn and the intensity with which he was staring at your back had the hairs on your neck raised. Finally, you turned to face him, resting your back against the door once again. You stared at him without meeting his gaze directly, and without realizing he had even moved closer you suddenly felt his fingers tilting your chin up so that your eyes would meet his. 

“What do you want me to say?” he said softly in English. You could smell the whiskey on his breath as he spoke and suddenly your nausea and annoyance both came back in full force. 

“What do I want you to say?!” You spoke in a harsh whisper back, pushing against his chest and forcing him back a step. He was distracting when he was in your personal space and you wanted a clear head for the conversation you were about to have.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me Horacio!” fresh tears causing your eyes to sting once more as your voice dipped dangerously low. “You MURDERED a child tonight! A fucking KID! And for what Horacio? To make a point? To prove to Escobar that the big bad Colonel is the one in charge?” And as the words left your mouth you saw his eyes flash dangerously. He quickly took two steps forward and you found yourself pressed against the door once again, this time fixed in place by his burning gaze just as much as his hard body. 

“What you call murder, I call sending the needed message!” his voice remained even and low as he fixed you with a dangerously calm expression and unwavering gaze. “Do you think for a second that the rest of those kids wouldn’t have run right back to assisting that psychopath as soon as they left our custody if I hadn’t sent that message!”

You stared defiantly back at him even as you felt treacherous tears leaving trails down your cheeks. He continued his lecture despite your lack of answer. “We will NEVER beat Escobar at his game if we don’t do what needs to be done and more kids just like those ones will get caught up in his web and grow into the same scumbag sicarios you’ve shot dead without blinking.” 

You knew he was right on some level, you really did. He wasn’t wrong in reminding you that you had ended lives with your gun just as he had, that you had blood on your hands as well. Somehow that didn’t stop your mind from replaying the image of the scared young boy on his knees as Horacio handed him a bullet to give to Escobar. 

You lick your lips, biting onto your lower lip as you break eye contact and shake your head. This only served to make Horacio grab your upper arms suddenly. His bruising grip making your eyes snap to his once again, a wild look in his eyes now making you bite back the ‘fuck you’ that was poised to break loose from your lips.

“You always claim that you understand what I’m feeling and why I’m willing to push the envelope to get Escobar, but when I do the hard things that need to be done you look at me like I’m a fucking monster!” His voice was raised this time and somewhere in the back of your mind you knew it was prudent to remind him to be fucking quiet but you were so lost in the foreign look in his eyes that you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. 

Your sniffled audibly then, your lips quivered and you felt his hands loosen their vice-like grip on your upper arms. He took a step back, exhaling sharply as he rubbed the back of his head and turned to face away from you. He took a few steps across the room to your dresser and helped himself to the bottle of tequila, knocking it back straight from the bottle.

It was in that moment that you realized that this spiral he was in, only had so many outcomes. That if you allowed this maelstrom you both found yourselves in to pull you to the bottom, you might not both surface again. Doing everything right and ending up on the losing end of this war, officer after officer being sent like blind lambs to the slaughter, had damaged the man in front of you. Horacio, your Horacio, was as lost as you had ever seen him and if you didn’t grab onto his hand to anchor him now, he might slip away under these waves forever.

You took a shaky breath and stepped forward hesitantly wrapping your arms around him from behind. You felt him tense before grabbing onto your hands with his own larger ones while raising them before bending his head down to kiss them. It was then that you felt him begin to tremble, a low sob escaping his lips. He soon dropped to his knees and took you with him but you didn’t loosen your grip, whispering soft reassurances into the back of his neck as your own tears flowed freely once more.

You weren’t sure how much time passed like that but slowly you felt him calm, his head remaining bowed but his warm hands now rubbing slow circles on your arms. You finally knew that a better time was never going to present itself. Horacio needed a light to guide him back to the shores of reason and you hoped beyond all hope that this would provide him with one.

You rest your forehead against his upper back and take a deep breath in, steeling yourself for the conversation to come. 

“Mi amor?” you whisper shakily. 

“Mm?” he murmurs back, arms lightly squeezing yours still wrapped around him.

“I need to tell you something but I’m so afraid” this time your voice was so quiet when you spoke that you were concerned he may not have heard you at all. You knew immediately he had though when he shifted slowly, turning in your arms as he moved to sit with his back against the dresser, pulling you to straddle him while brushing your bangs from your face and gazing questioningly at you.

“I never want YOU to be afraid to tell me anything” he replied reassuringly while swiping his thumbs across your cheeks to clear the trails your tears had made. You swallow thickly around the lump in your throat, placing your hands on his chest and tilting your head, your mouth opening and closing several times while you try to force out the words.

Horacio’s gaze grew harder, his mouth settling into a tight line and jaw shifting slightly, and you could just tell that his mind was categorizing all of the possibilities of what you were about to say. He had been known to assume the worst but who wouldn’t when so many around you had betrayed you to the enemy over and over.

You lock eyes with him then, determined to wipe away the look of mistrust that was rapidly settling over his handsome features. “I’m pregnant” you murmur softly, your heart now pounding in your chest.

His mouth fell slightly open then, before seemingly working to form words that were caught in his throat. His eyes widened, blinking rapidly before looking at you in a bewildered way you were unfamiliar with seeing from Horacio. The seconds ticked by and you couldn’t help the sinking feeling that was settling into your stomach with each one that passed by without any acknowledgment from him. 

You start to push off of him to stand then but his hands stop you. Suddenly you catch his gaze once more and his shocked expression breaks into one of complete awe. His eyes suddenly glassy, he reaches out and hesitantly places a hand on your abdomen, touching you with more reverence than you had ever seen from him in the past. “You’re pregnant?” He choked out suddenly, the words come breaking through what could have been a sob, a chuckle, or both.

You start crying again then. Something you had done more lately than you had in probably your entire adult life. You smile through the tears as you nod yes and cover his hand with yours. No longer trusting your own voice. He grabs your face with his hands again and brings his lips down onto yours in a kiss filled with so much love, your heart feels like its bursting in your chest. When you come up for air you realize he’s smiling and you feel yourself smile back at him. 

“Carina, I have so many questions, but I don’t even know where to start…” He trails off with a chuckle while stroking your cheeks. 

“Well as long as you don’t ask how or question if it’s yours because I swear I’m going to punch you in the face if you do” you retort back and you both chuckle tearfully. You stood then, his gaze following you as you open the drawer above his head and pull out the test you had tucked away between shirts. You sniffle as you hand it to him. 

He stares down quietly at the same two pink lines that had mesmerized and horrified you in equal parts just a few days ago. You close the drawer and settle onto the floor next to him then, dropping your head onto his shoulder as you lean into him. His gaze continues to be fixed on the stick in his hands.

“I know it isn’t good timing and with work I’m not even sure…” you start to explain and he looks at you again so suddenly you worry about what he is going to say. He grabs the hand closest to him then, entwining your fingers and bringing it to his lips once again. 

“When has good timing ever stopped us huh?” he retorts with a small smirk, and he’s right. When has the timing ever been good for this relationship? The only people on the planet who have any idea that the two of you have been together for several years now are Javi, because he’s a nosy bastard, and maybe Trujillo simply because the young officer is just that observant. Steve has given you looks at times but has never outright said that he knows anything and you always considered that for the best. It gave him a chance to deny knowing anything if the shit ever hit the fan and their relationship was exposed. Carrillo’s career would probably survive the blow of fucking a gringa DEA agent but her career? That was another story entirely. 

“How far along do you think you are?” He asks carefully, and it is so like him to want to know more before reacting fully to anything. In the line of work, you share you also realize that information is a currency. The man next to you is undoubtedly already trying to pull together some tactical plan of attack as though this were their next joint operation. In a lot of ways, it was you supposed. 

“I think it might have been when I picked you up from the airport” she said while smirking. Her memory taking a sharp turn back to steamed up car windows in the darkened airport parking lot. His red eye flight arrival time from Spain and the stormy weather allowing enough privacy for them to make up for the time they had been forced apart without having to endure the entire drive home being unbearably horny. She hadn’t even considered bringing a condom and the white-hot need to have him back inside her as soon as possible the second they were alone had overridden any rational thoughts she had been having anyway. 

A sudden heat pooled between her legs at the memory of desperately riding him in the back seat, the dress she had worn just for him bunched around her waist as he gripped her thighs and ass, bucking up into her. It had been frantic and short-lived, but god she had missed the feeling of him filling her so completely. 

He was silent for a moment and she could see him trying to mentally calculate the days. “Almost 2 months then?” He finally questioned.

“Yeah. I guess with everything happening lately I didn’t really realize I was late until I already wasn’t feeling well.” She offered weakly “At first I blamed it on the stress of this job lately but then I started throwing up and Javi had all these jokes. I didn’t mean to keep it from you when I took the test I just… I didn’t want to add this to your plate if I didn’t have to” she finished lamely. 

He gently squeezed the hand he was still holding and turned to drop a kiss onto her head then. “We may not have been planning for this but I don’t feel like it’s just some responsibility being piled on. I know you are ALL modern American woman and independence, but I get to have a responsibility in this as well hm?” He continued to speak to you softly but sounded more like he had found his mental footing now. 

You met his gaze and smirked at him then, playfully glaring a bit. “Well, in that case, I won’t feel bad about blaming you every time I’ve vomited recently”

He smiles at you then, dimples and all, the kind of real smile that is rare for him and makes you treasure each one. You knew at that moment that you wanted this baby. That it would kill you if you didn’t see this man smile at your child like that every single day. A mental image forming again of a small dark-haired child leaping into his waiting arms, a home filled with love and laughter surrounding the three of you. Something you sure as hell had never had before, something you had never dared to let yourself want. 

Your own smile faltered slightly as the reality of the situation settled itself onto your shoulders once more. “What are we going to do?” you ask him, honestly hoping he has some way to make this less of a disaster. 

His smile falls from his face as well as he lets the doors holding back reality open once more. His signature seriousness settling over him as he stares at the actual door in front of you both. This room was a safe haven for the two of you but beyond that door, uttering even a whisper about your pregnancy would change things forever.

“I’ll lose my job Horacio” you choke out, the very thought making your throat feel like it’s physically closing. “Messina will have me on the next flight back to the states the second she knows” and even as you speak the words out loud you know it isn’t necessary, he is just as aware as you are of this fact. 

He sighed then, looking towards the ceiling, and you could almost read what his mind had conjured before he ever opened his mouth to speak. “Well there doesn’t have to be a baby”, he utters without looking at you, “If that’s what you want I mean” he adds quickly and at that moment you could already see how much even thinking those words had weighed on the man next to you. 

Many wouldn’t believe it if you told them, but like many in his homeland, Horacio was devoutly Catholic. If you had ever doubted for a second that this man loved you, this moment was irrefutable proof of his devotion. That he would venture so far outside of his ingrained beliefs to allow you to save your career spoke volumes about your relationship. You would never make him sacrifice a part of himself like that but it touched you all the same that he would offer you the same courtesy. 

It was your turn to grab his attention quickly now and you crawled back into his lap and took his face into your hands. He still avoided looking at you briefly before bringing his dark eyes to meet yours, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, clearly steeling himself for this conversation. “Horacio…” you began before trailing off, still working out how to make such a declaration without making an absolute fool of yourself.

“I love you. I have since maybe before I ever should have but I do. Probably more than I have ever let myself love someone else.” you brushed your fingers over his cheeks then as you watched his strong eyes become glassy once more at your declaration. “I want this with you Horacio. It’s crazy and I have NO clue how we will EVER make this work but I want this baby with you. I want to be a family if that’s what you…” and before you could even finish he had pulled you into another searing kiss. 

You chuckled against his lips, winding your arms around his neck as you settled into the kiss, moving your mouth against his in a dance you are both all too familiar with. This was all that mattered at this moment. Horacio’s arms wrapped around you and your chest pressed to his, allowing you to feel his strong heart beating. The problems of tomorrow could stay just as that for the moment. You are having a child with the man you love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this chapter is as well-received as the last! Enjoy everyone and let me know what you think in the comments!

As you wake up the next morning, the first thing that registers in your still tired brain is that you are not alone in your small bunk. Horacio’s warm body is curled around you, one of his strong arms holding you close, his face buried in your hair while his gentle exhalations tickle at your neck. You slowly begin to process all that had occurred the night before and you remember asking him to hold you after he made the suggestion that you attempt to get some rest. The request had sounded needy even to your ears but given yesterday’s rollercoaster of emotions, he had given into you without ado. Apparently yesterday had taken quite a toll on him as well because it was not like him to stay all night and risk being seen leaving your room like this. 

You lay there for a moment just trying to enjoy this, filing away every sound, sight, and feeling categorically as if you were processing the evidence of a scene mentally. Waking up next to each other isn’t something you had ever been able to regularly experience with Horacio and you didn’t know when it would happen again. You finally resign yourself to the reality that you have to face the day and you shift as you move to sit up and Horacio stirs beside you, his unfocused eyes opening as he stretches and slowly processes the situation as well. 

The sound of boots can already be heard reverberating through the halls of the base outside of your dorm, a quick glance at the bedside clock telling you that it was already after 7. You move to sit on the edge of the bed and can hear Horacio sigh and begin to rise as well. Without fail, the nausea that has been plaguing you recently slams into you like a speeding train. The feeling of pre-vomit salivation forms in your mouth just as your mind catches up with your body and you react by launching out of bed to the wastebasket in the corner. 

The burning sensation tears into your esophagus as you wretch out what you are sure HAS to be the complete contents of your stomach. As your vomiting turns into dry heaves, strong hands from behind you smooth your hair away from your face before one begins rubbing steady soothing circles on your upper back. A few months ago, hell a few weeks ago, this would have embarrassed you to no end. Today though, you are thankful for the man who would try to support you at your weakest like this. 

“Can you pass me a tissue?” you croak out while reaching a hand blindly behind you to point towards the tissues on your nightstand. He gets up to grab them and soon you feel a handful pressed into your waiting palm. “Thanks” you murmur while wiping at your face before dropping the used tissues into the wastebasket. 

You venture to glance at him then, finding him now standing above you with a serious look on his face. You stand on shaky legs and he reaches out an arm to steady you automatically. His mask of seriousness immediately gives way to a look of blatant concern then. 

“What?” you question, becoming uncomfortable under his lingering gaze. 

“Maybe you should take the day off” he suggests then and the words were barely out of his mouth when you react by wrenching your arm from his hold. A volatile combination of emotions swirling within your already sensitive gut at the very suggestion. 

“Because I’m an invalid suddenly?” you retort and Horacio rolls his eyes at your reaction, his jaw visibly tightening.

“You know that I would never imply that” his answer passing for relatively calm despite his hard body coiling tight like a panther waiting to spring. You could tell that he was doing his very best to not be baited into an argument with you but your ability to rationalize had flown out the window at the mere suggestion that you shouldn’t be going to work today. You were not even showing yet, what would he be like once the evidence of your condition was there for all to see.

Horacio sighs then and takes a step forward into your space, raising his hand to cup your cheek gently “I only meant that you didn’t sleep very much last night and with everything that has happened lately…” he shrugs slightly then as he trails off before continuing “I wasn’t insulting you or trying to control you or whatever else you’ve conjured up.” He ghosts a hand lightly across your lower abdomen to your hip before continuing “I just want to make sure that you are BOTH okay. I’m allowed that much am I not querida?” 

His openness is disarming, you quickly feel your resolve to be offended by his statement crumbling. This man has a way of tearing down the walls you build instinctually to defend yourself, always tugging at just the right brick at the right time in something akin to emotional Jenga. You smile softly at him then and bring one of your hands up to cover his, squeezing it in reassurance.

“I’m going to work this morning Horacio” you start and as he begins to open his mouth to reply you quickly cut him off. “We have a meeting with Messina that I cannot miss this morning but, and this is a big BUT, I will try to beg off a little early this afternoon IF I can. I promise I will be safe at my desk buried in paperwork, fantasizing about murdering Steve with my stapler every time he twitches in his squeaky ass desk chair for the majority of the day anyway”. 

You won’t say that he looks entirely satisfied but Horacio seems resigned to choose his battlegrounds with you carefully. Plus you know that you didn’t imagine the little upturn at the corner of his mouth that dangerously resembled a smirk at the mention of murdering Steve. You move in to peck his lips then and that is when the borderline smirk becomes an outright smile and chuckle as he casually redirects your lips to his cheek.

“Te quiero amoracita, but your breath smells like vomit” His brows knitting together as he pulls a face and his chuckling continues. You playfully shove at his chest then. 

“Alright! Out you go Colonel Carrillo! I’ll see you at work I’m sure” and with that Horacio is officially sent on his way for the day. He slightly cracks the door, mercifully spotting an empty corridor outside, and quickly heads off in the direction of the locker room without looking back.

The meeting with Messina goes about as well as you expect. She has questions about DEA agent involvement in some of Search Bloc’s more public and unsavory tactics. You let Javier lead the way through the minefield that is her line of questioning and do your girl scout best to compliment his answers tactfully. Steve says as little as possible on the matter and you aren’t sure if that’s more annoying to you or a blessing in disguise. 

Whenever Messina so much as looks in your direction, you have to focus on not internally panicking. Reassuring yourself that she doesn’t know anything about the baby and that you have no reason to have the VERY life-changing conversation that is looming on the horizon just yet. When she dismisses the meeting, you have to restrain yourself from running from the room in your eagerness to be as far from her gaze as humanly possible for the moment. 

By early afternoon, the three of you find yourselves back at your desks in the bullpen, which are unfortunately covered in stacks of intelligence and mission reports that have been backlogging steadily over the last few weeks. A byproduct of only picking the best intel you can find to jump on as quickly as possible since Carrillo’s return. If you weren’t already experiencing a headache from hell, you probably would have developed one instantly after laying eyes on the sheer amount of busywork that was ahead of you. Your promise to Horacio is entirely forgotten as you hunker down to the pile of work in front of you.

On a trip to the bathroom at some point during the day, you realize that you haven’t caught sight of Horacio all day, last seeing his figure retreating down the hallway from your room this morning. It surprises you honestly since you had half worried while dressing this morning that he may hover unnecessarily today. Instead, you now find yourself worrying absent-mindedly that he may be avoiding you.

By 6 pm, your head is pounding and you can’t quite pinpoint if it’s still from your lack of caffeine intake or the fact that you had only picked at what passed for lunch, your stomach still feeling decidedly off after your dismissal from Messina’s office. 

A sigh of frustration from Javier’s desk has you looking up from the report in front of you. He takes a drag off of the cigarette hanging from his lips before rubbing at his eyes.

“If I stare at these reports any longer, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. I need a drink, you two in to call it a night?” He says while looking between the two of you and standing to pull his jacket off of the back of his chair.

“Fuck it, I’m in” Steve replies while shifting folders closed on his desk and placing them quickly in what resembled a stack. He also stood and began putting his jacket on. 

“Yeah…I’m gonna hang back tonight guys” you say without looking up from the report you’re in the middle of typing. 

When silence greets you, you are forced to look up and see what they are doing. Two sets of eyes are keenly watching you, the matching expressions almost as if they were waiting for the punch line of your joke. It’s true you suppose, in the past you would have been the first one out of your chair, calling shotgun loudly as you rushed out of the doors ahead of your partners. 

“What?” you finally ask, an edge to your voice which you hoped would lead to them dropping whatever line of questioning they were clearly prepping for. 

“You really would rather hang out here and slave away at this shit rather than grab a drink with us? Are you sick?” Steve joked then and you schooled your face to not react as you thought ‘If you only knew’. 

“More like I’ve just spent an entire day sitting here with you assholes and I’ll be glad for the peace and quiet around here when you’re gone” you reply, gesturing around to the nearly empty building surrounding you.

“Fine suit yourself! Hey, type my reports while you’re at it too huh?” Javier jokes and he and Steve head out the door chuckling as you glare and throw them the bird.

Once you are blissfully alone you stretch in your chair before deciding to head to the cafeteria to see if you can find a snack and maybe some tea to ebb away at the headache. You had eyeballed the teabags on a break earlier but had become paranoid thinking about Javier or Steve picking up on the fact that you had NEVER once drank tea at work before. Yet another advantage of avoiding going to the bar with the idiots you called partners you thought to yourself. Idiots being an affectionate term when it came to those two.

You were just raising a steaming cup of green tea to your lips when a voice from behind you nearly startles you into spilling the entirety of your cup down the front of your shirt. “Shit!” you hiss as some of the scalding liquid sloshes onto your fingers instead.

You turn then to fix the offending trespasser with a glare, though you suppose he probably even has more of a right to be here than you do. He’s in his uniform once again, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets, and you can’t imagine that any man fills out that olive green better than the one in front of you. 

“Is this what you gringos call ‘begging off’ early?” He says while smirking at you and playfully looking down at his watch. 

“Technically I’m on a dinner break as we speak” you raise the prize that is the package of crackers you had located for sustenance, though this only results in Horacio raising an unimpressed brow at you. 

“And that’s what passes for dinner?” he replies while pointedly fixing his gaze on your middle for a moment before flicking his eyes back to yours. 

“For now it is. I’m almost done with my endless stack of nonsense and then I’ll search out something better” you say while holding your hands up in mock surrender. You hope he isn’t about to lecture you again because frankly you ARE tired now and it probably IS way past time you ate. 

He steps forward then and snatches the crackers from your hand, “well it’s lucky for you that the incredibly handsome father of your child ordered two dinners this evening” he says while launching them into the trash nearby. 

You narrow your eyes at him, not entirely averse to his easy playfulness but wary of this abrupt change in his demeanor. Sure you had managed to not run into him today but the man in front of you now was certainly not the same one who gave you a rash of shit for even wanting to go to work today.You decide to go with the flow for the evening, having no desire to pick an unnecessary argument with this hard-headed Colombian man of yours. 

“And where pray tell are these dinners located?” you question as you set your teacup down and step closer, hovering on the edge of work-appropriate distance. 

“My office” he says plainly and with that, he turns and begins heading down the corridor leading back to the offices, the implication to follow him left hanging in the air of the café. You again narrow your eyes slightly but ultimately decide that your desire for food is greater than any immediate need to remind him that you maybe shouldn’t be meeting alone in his office at this time of night. 

As you pass the bullpen you stop at your desk and gather up a few files, deciding it would only be prudent to have an excuse on hand if someone decided to drop in while you were eating with Horacio. You take note that nearly everyone, including and especially Messina, seems to be gone from the building now and that the offices surrounding your destination are all dark. When you finally reach his office, Horacio is already inside and you find yourself rooted to the floor in the doorway momentarily at the sight that awaits you. 

An entire spread of food is arranged across his desk and by the smell, you can already surmise that it is from one of your favorite restaurants. One that he had snuck off with you to on more than one occasion. Horacio has set out a plate for you and as you close the door he looks up at you smiling.

“So this is what passes for two dinners in Colombia huh?” you say slyly as you smirk at him and approach the small feast he has arranged.

“Well, to be honest, I meant to only order two dinners but then I thought ‘what if this or that makes you sick’ because I’ve heard that happens and we can toss anything that does believe me I just….” he trails off gesturing to the desk covered in food. “I may have gotten carried away” he finishes then, rubbing the back of his neck slightly with one hand, looking entirely too sheepish to be the Horacio you are familiar with.

You are touched beyond words that he would even consider that though. Literally one day into deciding to have a baby and this man is supporting you in ways that you hadn’t even realized your soul craved. You set your files aside and grab a little of each of your favorite dishes and dig in, the aroma in the room suddenly making you feel ravenous. 

You look up briefly a few bites in and catch Horacio just watching you eat with a small smile on his face. “What?” you ask as a warmth forms in your cheeks, feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious under his gentle gaze. 

“Lo siento. I just…” he trails off with a slight shake of his head. His smile widens a bit and you can’t help but think that this may be the first time you’ve ever seen him smile this much while sitting in this office. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you today, either of you” and as he says the last part you have to blink away the tears that spring into your eyes. 

You clear your throat slightly while setting down you fork, “I figured you were busy today. I didn’t run into you around the base after the meeting and I don’t know… I guess I know what we said last night but I might have preemptively prepared myself for you possibly needing some time to process everything” you admit, your voice softer now, more vulnerable. 

His facial expression sobers slightly at your admission and you pick at a few more bites of your food to distract yourself from staring. 

“Mi amor?” he questions, and you move your attention from your meal to Horacio then, your gaze locking with his across the desk which suddenly feels too large a space between you. 

“While I admit that I found myself worrying for the future today, I also find I am excited carina” He opens a desk drawer briefly then before getting up and walking around to join you on the other side of his desk. He leans against it in front of you and takes your plate gently from your hands before setting it aside. You feel yourself swallow thickly, your instincts placing your entire body on high alert in anticipation of his next actions as you wonder what exactly he is up to. He smiles gently at you then and reaches out for one of your hands, his expression as open as it had ever been during your interactions. He brushes his thumb over your fingers while smiling gently at you, a note of reverence in his actions. 

“I went home for a while today, that’s why you didn’t see me querida. You aren’t wrong, I did need some time to process what this means for us” he reaches into one of his pockets then before kneeling down in front of you and you would swear in that moment that your heart stops beating in your chest. “When you walked through the gates of this place with Pena years ago, I would be lying if I said I took you seriously. I thought you were too young and certainly too beautiful to be serious about a career like yours. But Pena vouched for you and then weeks turned into months and the two of you kept coming back, and you were always proving your competence and commitment to your position. You were this unyielding force of nature in the field but quick-witted and funny enough to go toe to toe with any of us. You confessed last night that you probably loved me before you should have and I would also be lying if I said that I didn’t feel something for you long before the night you finally let me take you home” he pauses then and gives your hand a little squeeze before he releases it, reaching to open the box that has suddenly materialized in his opposite hand. 

The ring inside the little blue box is modest but beautiful. You are stunned into absolute silence; not even entirely certain you are breathing at this point. “Before you try to talk me out of this or make assumptions about why now, I want you to know that I bought this while I was in Madrid. When I had nothing but your voice on the phone to look forward to and didn’t know when we would be in the same city again. I’ve wanted to make us into something more official for a long time and this has just made me realize that maybe there is no right time. I’ve longed too often to show you off as my girlfriend and I’ve always understood why we couldn’t but I don’t care about any of that anymore. I want to show you off as my wife. I want to start every day together and end each night in each other’s arms. I want to be allowed to be with you every step of the way as our child grows within you and you bless me with the family I had given up on having a long time ago” he pauses as he grabs your hand once more, leaning to kiss the palm as he looks up at you with captivating dark eyes. “I don’t want to pause our lives while we wait to catch Escobar any longer mi amor. Marry me mi Corazon?” 

You feel a million emotions passing through you all at once, your brain is short-circuiting as you try desperately to process that this is actually happening. This man is kneeling here in front of you asking you to be his wife and has apparently wanted this for months, even without the baby factor. You inhale deeply and suddenly become aware that tears are pouring down your face. You now look an absolute mess you are sure but Horacio is still looking at you with hopeful expectation written plainly across his handsome features. Reasons you should say no begin cycling rapid-fire through your mental channels, but you find that you don’t give a damn about a single one. Words fail you so you fling yourself forward into his arms while nodding yes and sobbing. 

You wrap your arms tightly around his neck as you straddle his lap, feeling him let out a relieved chuckle and squeeze you back just as snugly. You pull back then and stare into his eyes, now just as filled with tears as yours are. You lean in to press your forehead to his but he pulls back locking eyes with you “To be clear that’s a yes?” he questions and you can’t help the happy laughter that bubbles from lips. 

“Yes, Horacio. I will marry you” you say reassuringly nodding then as you watch the absolute elation he feels at your words become evident in his features. He grabs your left hand then between you and slides the band onto your ring finger, his hands trembling almost imperceptibly as he does. You are mesmerized by the ring on your finger and look for a moment longer, hoping to burn this exact feeling into your memory forever. You are marrying the man that you love and the thought makes you dizzy with joy. Then unbidden, internal panic slams into you and you feel an urgency to confirm that this is real. 

“Are you sure Horacio?” you suddenly blurt out then, and you immediately curse yourself for voicing your silly concern out loud. You meet his eyes once more and he smiles softly at you instead of looking offended as you had feared. 

“I’ve been sure for a long time” he says softly, and you surge forward to kiss him then, anchoring yourself firmly in this reality with the connection. When you part you lean your forehead against his gently and he allows it this time. Neither of you is in a hurry to be anywhere but in this moment with each other, reveling in this love you have found in one another. The other shoe will drop eventually, you are beyond sure of this, but at this exact moment, you find that you don’t care one bit. 


	3. Chapter 3

In your years of living life and working in Colombia, you had learned that rarely did events go perfectly to plan. This lesson has been harder learned at times than others and you were sure now that you had been naïve to believe that this would be any different. Your vision is blurry and the ringing in your ears has drowned out all other sound. Your body feels heavy and you are suddenly too weighed down by an invisible force to even turn your head. You struggle to inhale, a choking sensation in your chest preventing you from getting a full breath in. As you feel the last tendrils of consciousness leaving you, blackness crowding in from the edges of your vision, your last thought is of Horacio.

* * *

3 weeks ago…

The calm before the storm can be deceiving. The inherent stillness that exists in the atmosphere in the moments before the sky begins to darken and the winds pick up around you can lull you into a false sense of security if you aren’t careful. 

The day after your engagement to Horacio is much like any of the others recently you suppose. Your ring remains hidden in your bedroom, safe from prying eyes who may ask too many questions. Intel reports are delivered, tips are vetted, raids are meticulously planned, and the non-stop game of chess which you have been playing with Escobar for the better part of 4 years marches on without pause.

Still, it feels as though something is different now. You catch yourself staring just a little longer at Horacio when you think that no one else is watching. You stand just a little closer, almost brushing your shoulder against his while pouring over maps of the city. The change is likely imperceptible to the outside world but to you? There is now a light at the end of this tunnel of shadows you have lingered too long in, pinpricks of brightness beginning to replace all of the dark areas your eyes have adjusted to.

You are well aware that an invisible clock is counting down your time in this honeymoon phase and you are trying to be present in every moment between now and then. To complete as much of this work as you can. Soon you will need to come clean about your pregnancy and fully disclose your relationship with Horacio to your partners and superiors but if you can cling to these last few moments of normalcy, perhaps it will lessen the sting of change when you are forced out of this operation and likely out of your career.

You circle a building of interest on a map you’ve been discussing and glance up to see Javi and Horacio debating strategy, Steve off to the side in a chair nearby flipping through a file with determination written on his face. You will miss days like today when you lose this job and you will blame these damn pregnancy hormones completely for the way your eyes suddenly sting as you straighten and busy yourself gathering up the papers that have become a haphazard mess on the table.

Late in the night Horacio sneaks into your bunk and crawls into your bed beside you. You can’t be certain who initiates it but when you make love that night it feels different as well, softer and more important somehow. His strong hands leave warm trails gliding over your skin while yours pull him impossibly close, suddenly any distance between the two of you feels like too much. His lips ghost over your cheek, nipping at your chin, your neck, your chest. It’s sensory overload, simultaneously too much and not enough. His mouth finds yours in the end, swallowing your moans as he pushes you over the edge and follows right after with abandon. As you drift off in his arms in the afterglow, his hand settles protectively over your abdomen and you think that you could live with whatever happens next if this is what you will have always.

2 weeks ago…

In your dreams you find yourself standing alone on an ocean shoreline. Storm clouds loom overhead, dark and ominous, as a loud crack of thunder and blinding flash of lightening make you flinch in surprise. Heavy raindrops begin to fall all around you and an uneasiness settles itself into your bones. You look down at your hands and find them covered in blood instead of rain. A sudden roar fills your ears as a wave approaches unhindered from the distance and you brace yourself to be washed away.

You jolt awake to an increasingly familiar feeling, Horacio’s warm presence beside you in bed. The unfamiliar part is waking in his bed, in his home. Despite your sudden return to consciousness, your breaths quick and your heart racing, Horacio remains blissfully asleep laying on his stomach with his arms stuffed under his pillow. You marvel at how peaceful he looks like this, so relaxed with his long dark lashes resting against his cheeks. A sharp contrast to the serious persona he dons for work each day.

Steve had drawn the short straw and was pulled back to Bogota for a meeting with Messina. New intel had suggested that Escobar and his men may be planning retaliatory bombings in response to the recent rash of successful DEA backed raids by Search Bloc and the upper echelons wanted to be briefed with whatever information was available asap. He wouldn’t be back in Medellin for several days and with Steve away, Javi had predictably bucked the rules almost immediately and disappeared off base to visit what you were sure was a very reputable woman. With Steve and Javier both gone, you had taken full advantage of the situation and packed a bag yourself.

Horacio’s face when he had answered his door to you standing on his doorstep last night had been priceless. It wasn’t often you were able to pull off a surprise with this man. Thankfully, he had quickly quieted your fears of having overstepped by just showing up, reminding you that you were marrying him and that this would be your home too. That had been an entirely surreal revelation that even now you were still processing.

You had visited his home before, obviously, but had never spent any great amount of time here. It was a nice home in what was a decent neighborhood here in Colombia you supposed. Nothing over the top, but clean and maintained in a way that you expected from a man with a military background and sparse in a way that you anticipated from a man who had long been a bachelor. You couldn’t judge, having joked on more than one occasion that you probably wouldn’t have had furniture at your place at all if the embassy hadn’t furnished it for you. A side effect of the busy lifestyle your career made you lead.

It was still early, the first hint of light beginning to filter through the bedroom windows. You quietly slide from the bed and move to the bathroom, pressing the door closed with a soft click. The nausea that had been an ever-present constant in your life for the last month was feeling manageable at the moment thankfully and you fully planned to enjoy having a private shower at your disposal this morning rather than the open women’s locker room showers you had been forced to use while staying at the base.

Once you were done showering you cracked the bathroom door again, thankfully finding that you hadn’t managed to wake Horacio. The room was blanketed in soft morning light now and you were able to pull some fresh clothes from your bag in relative silence. As you turned to the mirror and began to unfold your jeans to pull on, the image before you gives you pause.

You turn slowly to view your side profile in the mirror and the air leaves your lungs. Your lower abdomen which you could have sworn was perfectly flat just a week ago now has the smallest of bulges. If you didn’t know that you were pregnant the change could almost be mistaken for bloating but it’s definitely all baby in your mind. Your throat burns and tears spring to your eyes as you hesitantly move your hand over the tiny curve. “Hi baby” you whisper before you can help yourself, your hand now cupping this new bulge. You are so busy being captivated by this revelation that the voice from the bed behind you catches you completely off guard.

“You’re showing” Horacio says softly, now sitting up in bed with the covers pooled at his waist. You turn to lock eyes with him and are nearly brought to your knees by the tender look on his face. His sharp focus is entirely on your hand still covering your abdomen and you crawl up the bed, stopping to kneel before him. He glances up at you then as if asking permission and you nod slightly, moving your hand away so that he can have a turn inspecting this change.

He slowly lays his hand onto the area newly vacated by yours and softly runs it from side to side over your lower abdomen, seeming to marvel at the sight before him.

“I love you” he murmurs then, his voice hoarse with emotion as he moves his eyes back to yours.

You lean in to place a peck on his lips before replying “I love you too”.

1 week ago…

A summer rainstorm in Medellin has you opening an umbrella as you step out of the jeep you had just parked. You had been careful to park in front of a rather busy restaurant so that you could say you had stopped for lunch if anyone were to be keeping tabs on you. Your offhand excuse to Pena for needing to go off base alone today had been that you were meeting a contact and it had taken all morning to convince him that you didn’t need back up. You still didn’t entirely trust that either he or Steve wouldn’t try to trail you. Unbeknownst to your good intentioned partners, your true destination was an obstetrician’s office several blocks away from where you were standing and you were already less than enthused about your walk there even without the rain factor.

You blink up at the clouds, a ceiling of varying shades of gray covering the sky for as far as you can see today. This weather was doing nothing for the nerves that have been welling up inside of you. After a lengthy debate (pronounced argument) earlier in the week with Horacio you had caved and agreed to see a doctor whose office he had found and made an appointment for you at. Apparently seeing undeniable proof of your advancing pregnancy had brought forth an urgent need for this visit to happen in Horacio’s mind and no amount of counter arguments on your part had deterred him.

You have never been a huge fan of doctor’s offices to begin with but Horacio had assured you that he had discreetly made the appointment under an assumed name and that he had vetted the place appropriately. The fact that you had gnawed your fingernails off with anxiety all week whenever you hadn’t been able to throw yourself into work told you that this was still just as stressful to you even with his reassurances.

Apparently Horacio has been perceptive of this because he has volunteered to meet you today. A thousand reasons why he definitely shouldn’t had flown from your lips at the very suggestion but he had insisted after seeing how unsettled doing this had made you. As you continued your walk in the rain, you smile a bit to yourself, taking a small measure of comfort in knowing that at least you would have the right back up today after all.

When you arrive at the address, you glance around as the hairs on your neck seem to suddenly stand on end. Seeing no unusual activity on the street you internally curse yourself for your paranoia, writing the entire feeling off to the situational anxiety you had been experiencing placing you perpetually on edge. Inside, the waiting area of the office seemed clean enough and the desk staff was polite. If they found it odd that a gringa was seeing an OB in a foreign country, they didn’t show it outright and for that you were grateful. They handed you some forms to complete and advised that you could sit while waiting for your appointment time.

You had just started the paperwork when Horacio entered the office. You held back your eye roll that he had bothered to change into plain clothes at all when he still stuck out as a cop or at the very least a military man like a sore thumb. Instead you raise a hand to wave at him at him in greeting as he approaches you, taking the seat next to yours and glancing down at the clipboard you’re holding.

He chuckles lowly seeing the question you had just gotten to. ‘Numero de parejas sexuales?’ the line read, and you tap your pen against his knuckles in warning as you push your shoulder into his lightly.

“Don’t make me regret bringing you Carrillo” you say quietly as you narrow your eyes at him in mock anger. He smirks at you then and makes a motion indicating that he will keep his mouth shut. You do roll your eyes at him this time but continue filling out the paperwork nevertheless. All to soon your assumed name is being called.

The nurse asks additional questions once you are in an exam room and when she inquires about who you have brought with you today Horacio quickly interjects “I’m her husband”. You weren’t expecting the way your stomach did a flip at hearing those words spoken out loud. They weren’t explicitly true of course but soon they would be. You reach for his hand and give it a small squeeze in appreciation.

The appointment after that is a blur of questions be thrown at you for a while and you don’t relinquish your grip on Horacio’s hand as the doctor enters and begins his own introductions and line of questioning. You try to mentally remind yourself that you are a damn DEA agent for fuck’s sake and definitely do NOT need your hand held. You have faced far scarier, more high stakes scenarios than this without even flinching. Somehow this though, this was more frightening to you than all of that combined. This was unknown territory, uncharted waters where everything felt terrifying and life changing.

When the doctor wants to begin his physical examination, he asks if Horacio wants to step out. You make eye contact with him and shake your head almost imperceptibly from your place on the exam table, trying and failing to contain the small amount of panic the thought of being alone suddenly induces in you. Horacio politely informs the doctor he will stay if it’s alright.

At the conclusion of the exam the doctor informs you of something you haven’t quite anticipated and you once again find yourself looking to Horacio for guidance.

“Esta bien, si lo desea, entonces esta lo suficientemente avanzado como para hacerse un ultrasonido hoy” the doctor had said and you haven’t at all mentally prepared for this. This pregnancy is still very much an abstract thought for you in a lot of ways, something that’s kind of there but until today you haven’t discussed it with anyone but Horacio. In your line of work it isn’t like keeping secrets is an entirely unnatural behavior, so other than the fact that you know that you will eventually need to fess up to the DEA, it isn’t all that difficult to not tell anyone that it isn’t currently affecting. In your mind, it’s just another piece of mission information that is currently classified on a need to know basis.

This appointment has already skewed that point of view with the abundance of information that you have given out and received in return and now may just tip the scales past the point of no return. As you are prepped for the ultrasound, you try to breath and ignore the feeling of a lump lodged firmly in your throat. Horacio moves his chair closer to the table you are laying on now and is holding your hand once more, trying to soothe you by running his thumb gently of your knuckles. Then, just like that the earth drops from beneath your feet and you are in an emotional free fall.

Out of what had started as a bunch of black and white blurriness that doesn’t look like much of anything at all to you, the somewhat grainy but still very much identifiable silhouette of a baby has appeared. The world stops entirely, and you feel that you are only being tethered in this moment by the fact that Horacio is now the one who suddenly has a death grip on your hand. You mean to tell him that it’s hurting you but you actually can’t physically make yourself look away from the screen much less form coherent words.

The doctor moves the wand around, finding an even better angle and begins to make notes of the measurements and progress of the baby out loud. You still can’t process what exactly you are seeing much less what you are hearing. Sure you know you are pregnant and understand the process of it generally but you honestly thought you would be looking at something that appeared to be more of an amorphous black and white blob today when the doctor offered an ultrasound, not an actual baby. This baby, your baby you reminded yourself, has the distinct shape of an actual baby if a little out of proportion yet. And it’s moving! You watch with rapt attention as the little arms and legs move as the baby wiggles within your womb and you are definitely crying now. You swipe at your eyes quickly trying to hide how emotional you are becoming.

The world around you fades into the background as the doctor presses a button on the monitor and suddenly the rapid and unmistakable tone of a heartbeat reverberates through the room. You are feeling a million emotions simultaneously and don’t at all feel equipped to process this. You suddenly sit up and ask quietly in Spanish if you can be finished for today, uncharacteristically staring at the floor rather than meeting the doctor’s eyes.

You are grateful when the doctor nods and quietly agrees to excuse himself while you get dressed. You do that in silence as well as Horacio moves his chair back and leans forward while seated, cradling his head in his hands. Approximately eleven weeks and four days the doctor had said, meaning you had twenty-eight-ish weeks to make the world as safe as you possibly could for a baby carrying Carrillo’s name in Colombia. Less actually considering that you are probably nearly out of time for this to still be kept a secret, the doctor informing you today that you will likely begin to note some more prominent changes in the coming weeks.

Once dressed, you return to the chair next to Horacio and place a hand gently on his back. He turns his head to look at you and you both share a moment of silence, worry written plainly on your faces.

“We have to get Escobar” you say to him then and he lets out a humorless bark of laughter.

“Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do for 4 years now querida? And where has that gotten us huh?” He replies and you know you aren’t imagining the sarcasm staining his voice. Horacio is back to sitting up in his seat now, back straight and jaw set, and you know that this is a default defense of his, slipping back into this all business persona.

“We need a plan Horacio” you say quietly and he only nods back at you, either not knowing what to say to you in that moment or not wanting to offer what he’s thinking. Both options are frustrating to you at the moment.

As you leave the appointment, Horacio tells you he’s parked in the opposite direction and takes off down the street without looking back. You stand there letting the rain soak you without opening your umbrella. The heavy rain is camouflage for your tears as you walk back to the Jeep. Through your blurred vision, you miss the men watching you from a nearby vehicle.

12 hours ago….

Since your appointment nearly a week ago, Horacio has avoided being alone with you entirely. You don’t honestly believe he is angry with you but it is difficult for you to suddenly not have his support to calm your incessant doubts. You suppose that a lot of rapid-fire changes are coming to this man’s carefully executed existence and that he is entitled to the time you had always assumed he might need to process everything. That doesn’t lessen the sting of rejection you automatically feel though.

So you get up, you put on your pants which have become ever so slightly tight in ways they weren’t before, you go to work and pretend that everything is fine, and then you end the night alone in your room worrying about what the future means for you and this baby. When you are feeling especially brave or maybe just a little self deprecating, you pull out your ring and stare at it, wondering if he is thinking about you too. But life around you continues on regardless of this pause in your relationship and you are nothing if not an agent of the DEA first.

A series of raids executed this week have been exceptionally fruitful but ultimately concerning. Gato is captured and taken off of the board. The details of a helicopter ride Horacio and Steve took with him remain unclear to you at best but for once you assume that not knowing what had occurred might actually be the better alternative in this scenario. In the field, Horacio is once again a man possessed and old concerns begin to resurface regarding his behavior.

To add to this, several raids have added weight to the prior indications that Escobar and his sicarios may be back in the bomb making business. Strong evidence of device construction has been located at several sites but ultimately completed devices are nowhere to be found. Your team is on edge and the implications of more bombings taking the lives of innocent bystanders is enough to have you all working your A game. You spend countless hours going over tapes provided by Centra Spike’s surveillance efforts in a desperate attempt to find any clue regarding Escobar’s next play.

You feel as though you are constantly arranging and rearranging information, attempting to find the right fit that will lead you to the truth and yet consistently completion of this puzzle alludes you. Failure hasn’t been entirely foreign to you in this war against Escobar but it doesn’t make the bitter taste of it any more bearable for you. Frustration and agitation find a home within you at your inability to feel effectual in either your work or personal life. The very literal storms of last week have given way to a tempest of emotions within you, the surge of which has flooded the streets of your mind, leaving you clinging to anything solid that you can to stay afloat. These storm clouds in your mind seem just as tangible to you as the real thing, just as capable of producing unpredictable patterns of destruction.

Daylight peaks through the dark clouds when Javier returns from an unplanned excursion off base with news that he has met a girl who provided a substantial lead about Escobar. When the details are discussed with the entire team present in the conference room, you feel hope and disbelief in equal portions.

While a large part of you wants to latch onto this and run with it, an even larger portion knows that you have been burned by leads like this before. It concerns you that this girl is from Medellin and you voice this opinion only to have Javier assure you all that this girl knows she won’t get anything from you if her information is bad. When you lay in bed last night, a thousand scenarios running through your mind, you try to soothe your unease by rubbing a hand over the small bump that houses your growing child. You had told Horacio that you needed a plan and you couldn’t help but wonder if this may be it.

Morning comes and the entire base is humming with life as everyone scrambles to be prepared to move on Escobar when Pena receives his promised phone call. Your nausea is back but that could easily just be your anxiety about today manifesting itself rather than an actual pregnancy symptom. You busy yourself with reading through fresh reports to keep your mind off of the situation at hand. Messina arrives to be briefed and is ushered into Horacio’s office while you hang back and survey the situation from the bullpen. Just before noon the phone call Javier has been waiting for comes and he quickly rushes off in the direction of the conference room where most of your team has gathered clutching an address in his hand.

Your afternoon is spent finalizing preparations and while your team seems increasingly determined to make this a win, your unease has grown by the minute despite your best efforts. You finally give voice to your concerns while standing around the conference room table and carefully watch Horacio’s face as you state what seems like an unpopular opinion at the moment

“What if it’s a set up?” you offer to the group and are met by momentary silence. You see Horacio’s jaw work but no cracks of open doubt appear through his mask of seriousness.

“You were there. You trust her?” Horacio finally asks Javier, breaking the uncomfortable silence in the room.

Your eyes take in every minute change in your partners expression and body language, trying to determine how sure he may actually be.

“Yeah. Yeah I do” Javi says finally and you wish that you were as convinced as him.

Evening approaches and the time of the meeting is near when Centra Spike finally pulls through and you all listen intently as they play back their communication recordings. All of you collectively share a look of disbelief at hearing Escobar’s voice nearly in real time and everyone scrambles to jump on the information. You begin to panic internally, wondering how you can possibly afford to hang back in this scenario when Messina stops you all in your tracks anyway, informing you that your team would not be accompanying Search Bloc during this operation. Steve and Javier immediately lose their cool and as the room around you becomes chaos, you can only stare at Horacio wide-eyed.

Fear seizes your insides as Horacio glances up at you once before nodding to the room and leaving with “we’ll be in radio contact.” You want desperately to follow him, your heart pounding in your chest as you stare at the door he had just exited through and will him to come back. The argument between Messina and your partners intensifies around you and you can’t even find it in you to participate.

“I’ve made my call and it’s final” Messina ends with as she leaves the room with an air of finality.

Steve kicks over a chair as Javier lights a cigarette and seethes. “This is bullshit and you know it!” Steve says looking between you and Javier.

Javier merely rubs at his temples and you just shake your head, still unable to fully process that this is actually happening. Horacio will be out there without DEA back up on what may be your biggest operation to date. The thought of it has your heart pounding in your chest and you murmur that you need some air, suddenly needing to be anywhere but in that room.

You arrive outside just in time to see Horacio and his men loading up into the police vehicles. The flurry of activity should make him hard to pick out but you would know those shoulders and that walk anywhere. You stare at his back from your place on the steps of the base and will him internally to look back at you even once. He doesn’t and you have to watch him climb into a vehicle and drive away, the entire caravan disappearing out of the gates. Your chest is heavy now and it feels physically hard to breathe. You briefly wonder if this is what it feels like to drown.

When you pull yourself together enough you return inside to find a group has gathered in the conference room to monitor the Search Bloc radio transmissions. Everyone waits with bated breath as the team approaches the apartment complex that Pena’s informant has indicated. The next few minutes have everyone on edge but when Horacio’s voice comes over the radio informing everyone that the apartment has been cleared and no one is there, you can’t help the relief that floods you. This is a huge loss strategically but your gut feeling of impending doom eases as you come to terms with the realization that Horacio will be coming safely back to you tonight.

You glance around at your fellow occupants in the room. Javier looks defeated at the news and Messina looks annoyed to say the least. Steve is quite possibly the angriest and while he doesn’t abuse any more furniture you definitely hear him mutter “for fuck’s sake” under his breath.

“Well we might as well go see what might be of use there. Carrillo says the apartment definitely looks like it was connected to the cartel at some point. Or are we not allowed to do our jobs now at all?” Javier says as he is already gathering his jacket and eyeballing Messina with poorly concealed disdain for her actions.

Messina nods in approval and you walk with Javier and Steve towards the bullpen. They gather their pistols and prepare to head out to the jeep but you just stand there, staring at the pile of paperwork that you abandoned earlier after Javier’s phone call had arrived. There is a thread of interest there that you feel the urge to pull on until something, anything unravels.

“You know what guys, I’m going to hang back and clean up this mess. Maybe I can figure out our next play and make this day less of a complete disaster” you say as you drop into your office chair and sigh audibly.

Javier nods at you and he and Steve head towards the doors. You are surprised when Messina decides to join them and can see the poorly concealed looks of annoyance your partners share even from your seat in the bullpen as the group disappears out of the main entrance of the base.

You begin to lay out documentation from all of the recent raids where bomb materials were logged across your desks. As you begin to cycle through a stack of photos Steve had taken as evidence, one catches your eye and makes you stare for just a moment longer. You confirm what you are seeing by making sure that you have pulled photos from separate raids and can clearly see the connection you had been missing between them now. There in every single photo are identical boxes with the same shipping logo printed on them. A piece of this puzzle you have been attempting to solve is now hovering just outside of your grasp and you desperately try to recall where you have seen this logo before, because you are damn sure that you have.

The realization hits you like a bolt of lightning and your heartbeat quickens as you finally fit the last piece into your puzzle and the scene becomes clear to you. Your hands shake as you push off of your desk and stand, beginning to walk in the direction of conference room you had vacated earlier. You have seen these boxes before you realized, right here at the base when they were being delivered by a truck with this exact logo.

As you take the first step up the stairs into the office area, you are suddenly blown backwards by a force that catches you completely unaware, the hot cloud of dust and ash overtaking you before you can even react. The world has exploded around you, pieces of brick and glass striking you even as you lay on the ground. Your vision is blurry and the ringing in your ears has drowned out all other sound. Your body feels heavy and you are suddenly too weighed down by an invisible force to even turn your head. You struggle to inhale, a choking sensation in your chest preventing you from getting a full breath in. As you feel the last tendrils of consciousness leaving you, blackness crowding in from the edges of your vision, your last thought is of Horacio.  
  


Meanwhile at the apartment scene Carrillo is standing outside, smoking a cigarette in annoyance as his men pack up their equipment. He had honestly thought that this was going to be their big win, that Escobar was finally going down this evening and that he could at long last offer you the life that you deserve. The disappointment of this failure was acrid to his very senses. He had failed not only his men tonight but you as well and he knew that he would need to make this right when he returned to the base tonight.

“Mi Coronel!” he hears Trujillo call out from the stairs of the complex and with a heavy sigh stubs out his cigarette on the sidewalk and turns to follow the man back upstairs.

“There is something you should see before anyone else arrives” Trujillo says and Horacio isn’t sure what to make of the slightly panicked looked on the man’s face. Trujillo isn’t one to be easily rattled.

He is led to a back bedroom inside the apartment they had raided. There is a desk against one wall and the room is lit dimly by a lamp. Trujillo walks over to the desk and nods down at it, indicating that this is what he meant to show Horacio.

He stops in his tracks when he realizes what he is looking at. There on the desk is a single bullet which he instantly recognizes as the one he had handed to the spotter boy last month. His pulse begins bounding in his chest as he reaches out to pick up the bullet and realizes that there is an envelope underneath with his name on it.

He looks up to see Trujillo watching him intently, clearly just as confused and disturbed by what he is seeing. He tears open the manilla envelope and peers inside, seeing a collection of paperwork and photos. He pulls these out and his heart seizes in his chest at the realization of what exactly the envelope had contained.

There are photos of you. Ones that are years old and brand-new ones. A chill of uncharacteristic fear shoots down his spine when he sees one of the two of you standing outside of the doctor’s office just last week. Rage begins to replace the fear as he sees what the other contents are. There is a copy of the doctor’s report and of the ultrasound print outs. He looks up at Trujillo once more and sees the man’s brows are knit together, a question in his gaze now.

Before he can say anything to explain the envelope, the radios begin to go off. Panicked voices shouting about explosions at the school. The two of them lock eyes before taking off down the stairs, rushing to the vehicles as orders to return to the base are quickly barked.

Horacio’s sat phone rings as the caravan races back to the base. He feels disconnected from his body as Pena’s voice informs him that they had been on their way and had turned around when they heard the commotion over the radio. Pena tells him that he, Steve, and Messina are outside of the base now and that emergency personnel are already arriving but that you had been inside. They haven’t been able to find you and there are fires in portions of the building now where you may have been.

Horacio is a man who has seen the horrors of warfare without flinching. He has faced gunfire and grenades without backing down and certainly without feeling true fear. This though, this pushes fear into the very fabric of his soul. You can’t be dead, you just can’t. He realizes at some point that he hasn’t even been processing what Pena is saying any longer and mutters a clipped statement about being there in 5. Trujillo pushes the vehicle to it’s limits hearing this.

Before the jeep even screeches to a halt in front of the base, Horacio has ripped open the door and is tearing across the lawn to where he can see people gathered. There are ambulances and fire trucks on scene already and the area is in absolute chaos. He sees men, his men, laying wounded and dead around the lawn of the base. Sections of the building have been blasted apart and a fire rages inside. There is smoke and ash filling the air around the scene.

Pena is screaming for help and that’s when Horacio realizes that you are there on the ground. His stomach drops and his entire body goes numb as his legs carry him to where you lay. You are impossibly still and covered in dust and ash. Blood has poured from your nose, mouth, and ears. There is already swelling on your face and your clothes are torn and singed in areas. He feels like he can’t breathe and as Steve turns to speak to him, he sees that his mouth is moving but can’t comprehend the words. Steve places a hand on his shoulder looking concerned but he pushes past and moves to your side. You have to be okay, you need to wake up.

Paramedics have arrived and begin trying to assess you rapidly, shining a light in your eyes and using a stethoscope to assess your too shallow breathing. Horacio tries to touch you but feels hands pulling at him from behind. Suddenly the world snaps into sharp focus and Pena is yelling at him to give the medics space to work on you.

He turns, eyes wild, and breathing rapid. He blinks trying to process what is going on. The world feels like it is spiraling out of control. Javier and Steve share a look and the former once again tries to give him a rundown of the situation but he just shakes his head, looking back to where they are trying to load your limp body onto a stretcher now.

He follows instinctually as they move you to the ambulance and Steve and Pena chase after him, continuing to yell at him. As they load you inside, one medic beginning to use a bag device to assist your breathing, he finds himself asking if he can go with you.

The medic closest to him looks at the scene around him, the other men clearly trying to talk him out of this.

“I’m sorry sir, we really shouldn’t take anyone that isn’t related to the patient” he replies as an excuse as a driver begins to close the doors.

He catches one and before he can think better of it the words are falling from his mouth “Please? She’s my fiancé and she’s pregnant”.

The medic finally nods and the driver ushers him to the passenger seat quickly, leaving a very wide eyed Pena and slack jawed Steve in their wake.


	4. Chapter 4

For what seems like an eternity and a split second all at once, you are aware of nothing. A deep kind of darkness that is all encompassing spreads through every crevice of your mind, blocking out all perception of time and sensation. You are everywhere and nowhere inside this chasm. Then, just as quickly as the abyss consumed you, you are racing towards the surface of consciousness and breaking through to the other side, rejoining the world of the waking.

You spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to open your eyes, your eyelids feeling much heavier and stuck together than you can ever recall them being before. Your eyes crack open one at a time and you wince at the brightness of the fluorescent lighting overhead. Everything is blurred as you try to will your eyes to focus on anything that would help you identify where you are. Your hearing is muffled and you can feel yourself begin to panic at your own inability to orient yourself.

Then suddenly there is the familiar pressure of a hand taking yours, a steady squeeze grounding you and letting you know that you aren’t alone. Horacio’s somewhat blurred face appears close to yours and his lips are moving but you can’t quite make out what he is saying, everything sounds dampened like you are suspended underwater. You try desperately to form words, to ask him what is happening, but find that your mouth and throat feel impossibly dry.

There is movement in the periphery of your vision and Horacio is speaking with someone else now, looking upset. A warm sensation begins to envelope your body once more, beckoning you back into the dark void you had briefly peaked out of. You feel the ghost of a kiss on your forehead before the blackness overtakes you.

You aren’t sure how much more time passes after that but when you awaken again, the lights seem dimmer. Your eyes seem more able to adjust this time and you slowly glance around you, trying to place this unfamiliar setting. Your hearing seems to have improved as well because it is the sounds that you pick up on next that assist you in piecing together this mystery. A machine to the side of your bed begins beeping and as you try to turn your head to track the noise, you realize two things. One that based on the machines and wires attached to you, this must be a hospital room, and two that you aren’t as alone as you had originally assumed.

There, to the side of your bed in a chair that cannot possibly be comfortable, is Horacio. He’s wearing a pair of those damn khakis that he somehow manages to make attractive and one of his trademark polo shirts. His arms are crossed and his chin has dipped to his chest, the brown eyes that you long to see are closed in sleep. He must be exhausted too because the Horacio you know would have been on his feet instantly at the shrill sound the machine is making any other time.

You hear footsteps approach on the tiled floor and turn your head to see a woman in scrubs approaching your bed. She looks at you in surprise for a moment before continuing into your room and coming to your bed side. You listen as she introduces herself as your nurse, explaining that you are in the hospital, and you watch as she adjusts the machine that has been beeping until the noise stops.

“Do you remember how you came to be here” she asks softly, and you aren’t certain If she is trying not to wake Horacio or proverbially putting on kiddy gloves to talk to you.

It takes you a moment to work your mouth open and seeing this she offers you some water from a pitcher at your bedside. You eagerly pull water into your mouth from the straw but in your haste to alleviate the dryness of your mouth, you sputter and cough, choking on the water. The sound of a chair scraping on the floor signals Horacio rapidly rising to his feet. He is at your side at once and you feel a hand cup your cheek lightly as he quickly asks the nurse how long you have been awake.

Now that he is close, you take in the dark circles under his eyes and the unfamiliar sight of stubble on his cheeks. He looks exhausted which is saying a lot since you have seen this man function on a few hours’ sleep for days at a time without missing a beat. He is touching your face as if he is worried you will crumble beneath his fingertips and your heart aches to reassure him that you are okay, except by the look on his face you aren’t entirely certain that this is true.

“I’ll give you a few minutes alone while I alert her doctor that she is awake now” the nurse says before leaving the room.

Once she is gone you try again to say something, willing yourself to get the words out. “Hor….Horacio” you rasp out and watch as his eyes turn glassy and his chin trembles.

“I’m here corazón… I’m here” he says softly before leaning down to gently kiss your forehead.

You swallow thickly, your tongue still feeling awkward in your mouth and your throat scratchy. “What happened” you question, you voice little more than a whisper, sounding weak even to your own ears.

Something akin to physical pain flashes across Horacio’s face then. He sighs and moves to grab your hand, perching on your bedside as he runs his fingers lightly across your knuckles. You are slowly becoming more aware, the fog hanging over your mind receding, and with this awareness you are slowly realizing how much you hurt.

“What do you remember cariño?” Horacio asks, and you definitely aren’t imagining the careful tone he adopts for you now.

You think for a moment, trying to recall what had led to you being here in this hospital bed. Memories slowly begin to replay through your mind as you sift through what you could recall. The base, you had been at the base putting evidence together about the bombs. The bombs……the explosion! Your heart begins to race as you remember the world exploding around you.

Whatever emotions were playing out inside of you at the moment must have been bleeding into your expression because soon Horacio is shushing you and delivering a soft kiss onto your hand.

“Hey….hey none of that okay. They’ve been sedating you to keep you calm and comfortable while you’ve been recovering. I don’t want them taking these beautiful eyes away from me again so soon querida” Horacio’s voice cracks slightly as he says this and you watch his adam’s apple bob as he swallows and clears his throat. This man has always been impossibly strong in your eyes and seeing him so overcome by emotions is difficult for you to take in.

“I’m sorry” you say quietly but he just shakes his head at you.

“Mi amor, I’m the one who is sorry. I almost lost you, both of you” and he doesn’t try to cover his cracking voice this time. His one hand cradling yours while his other moves to rest gently over your abdomen.

You blink then before the realization of what he is referring to slams into you. The baby. ‘Oh my god my baby’ your thoughts race as you begin to try to sit up and Horacio is quick to place his hands on your shoulders, gently but firmly pushing you back onto the bed.

“Shhh relax now querida. I promise the baby is okay. Our baby is a fighter just like it’s mama” and he beams with pride as he softly reassures you of this.

His reassurances relax your immediate fears, and you try to take a deep breath to calm yourself only to have blinding pain erupt from your side when you do. A choked sound escapes your mouth unbidden and Horacio is once again speaking in soft tones, a desperate edge to his voice as he tries to alleviate your pain.

When the immediate burst of pain has subsided, you decide you NEED to know what happened now. “Horacio, what happened after the explosion?” and as soon as the words leave your mouth you almost regret it, seeing him hesitate to answer you.

“The explosion was almost 3 weeks ago mi amor” he says softly, and you can tell that he is gauging your reaction before pushing forward. Three weeks? You had been this way for three weeks?

“They brought you here by ambulance… you were in pretty rough shape mi amor. I’ve never been so afraid” and he has to inhale sharply and look away to maintain control over his emotions this time. You weakly move your hand to grasp his now, the desire to comfort this man and reassure him that you are still here overwhelming.

He looks back at you and his tongue darts out to wet his lips before he continues “I spent hours in the waiting room not knowing if you had even made it and I just kept thinking that if you died or the baby didn’t make it I was never going to forgive myself. I did not mean to shut you out mi amor, I pray that you know that”.

You were the one becoming tearful now, feeling the sting of tears forming in your still sensitive eyes. “It’s okay Horacio. There is nothing to forgive” you say, trying to inflect as much reassurance as you can into your still raspy voice.

“I knew you were trying to end this war, to make your homeland safer for us” and you smile softly as you say that. The hand not holding his moving to cradle the soft swell of your lower abdomen through your hospital gown. Against all odds it seems as though that had continued to grow as well, a small but more defined curve to your abdomen having formed in the last few weeks. There would be no hiding this bump under baggier shirts for much longer.

He brushes your cheek gently with his knuckles as he stares at you before saying, “I don’t deserve you mi amor but I will spend forever trying.” Your tears leave wet trails down your cheeks then as they slip from your eyes at his declaration. Just as you open your mouth to reply, a knock at the door interrupts and both of you glance towards the sound.

An older man in a white coat stands there with what you assume is your chart in hand. Horacio stands then to give the doctor space but gives your hand a gentle squeeze before stepping away from the bed. The doctor introduces himself and begins to assess you. Every movement of your limbs still feels clumsy and weak, every breath still evoking pain in your chest.

The doctor takes notes of several things before going over your injuries and a general course of your hospitalization so far. You had sustained a skull fracture, multiple broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a ruptured eardrum, among a plethora of less severe injuries. He notes that your chest pain is likely a combination of your rib injury and the healing area where a chest tube had been placed due to your lung injury. You were doing much better than they had anticipated but would likely require more time in the hospital as they continue to monitor your recovery. When he takes his leave of your room some time later, the weight of your situation is finally sinking in.

Horacio had been pacing quietly at your bedside throughout your exam, his serious face not giving away his emotions in front of the doctor but his nervous behavior telling you enough. When the doctor is gone, you turn your head to meet his gaze and call him closer to you once more.

He is back at your side in an instant and you offer him a weak smile “It’s okay Horacio, I’m still here okay” you say softly. He sits down gently on the bed beside you again and captures your hand which had been reaching towards him, pulling your palm to his lips and placing a light kiss on it.

“You look tired mi amor, you should rest” you say quietly as you take in his exhausted appearance once more.

He scoffs at this “I’m fine amor, you are the one who needs to keep resting so that I can take you both home soon. I hate seeing you here.”

You can’t help the small smile that forms on your lips at the word home slipping from this man’s mouth.

“I really hope that home in this case means your house rather than the base” you quip then, only to see Horacio’s gaze darken slightly and his small smile become a tightly set mouth.

“What’s that face for Horacio?” you ask, inherently knowing that he is holding something back from you. “Tell me” you say with as much of a demanding tone as you can muster in your state. He frowns and gets up from the bed then, walking back towards the chair he had abandoned earlier before turning back to you.

A feeling of dread begins to settle itself in your chest. Horacio wasn’t usually one to mince words and if something was this difficult for him to disclose to even you, you may not be ready to hear it after all.

“The DEA know about us and about the baby now mi amor…” he trails off then and something you can’t quite place flashes across his face before he continues “Pena and Murphy have been by to check on you and told me that Messina had you placed on administrative leave pending a review of the situation when you are back on your feet.” Your dread had been well placed, your career was over. The review would only be a formality.

Horacio must see the hurt you know you don’t have the strength to hide and approaches you slowly, as if he is expecting you to ask him to leave. It hits you then, he feels responsible for all of this. You nearly died and now have probably lost your career to boot and he was trying to protect you by not laying this on you now.

“This isn’t your fault Horacio” you say to him and when you see his mouth start to open to reply you cut him off “it’s not”. He throws a look in your direction telling you that he doesn’t quite agree with you but thankfully doesn’t offer a rebuttal.

He drops into the chair and leans forward, elbows on his knees as he rubs his hands down his face. When he speaks next, he isn’t making eye contact and what he says catches you completely off guard “well if it’s any consolation at all you aren’t the only one whose career was on the line after all”.

“What?” you say automatically, confused as to what he could be referring to.

“President Gaviria contacted me personally the week after the bombing. Apparently, we became quite the topic of conversation among our higher ups after what happened. They asked that I step down into a second in command role, saying that they suddenly believe that I’m ‘too close to this’” After his admission he finally looks up to you, and you can just tell that he is trying to gauge your reaction.

“Horacio I…I’m…” you start to stutter out an apology but he is quickly back at your side shushing you with a gentle shake of his head. “Don’t querida” he says with an air of finality.

“It doesn’t matter right now. We will sort all of this out later when you are stronger and can leave this place okay?” Horacio says, gently commanding you to drop the subject in a tone that you are more used to associating with work.

You nod as you feel your eyes becoming heavy again. A hand brushes against your face as deep brown eyes look down on you lovingly. “Get some rest mi amor” Horacio gently coaxes. How you can suddenly feel so tired after what was apparently weeks of mainly unconsciousness you aren’t quite sure, but your body is slowly giving in to the pull of sleep once more. You drift off gently this time, feeling safe with Horacio by your side.

The next week of your life is quite possibly the slowest in memory for you. Every day is a blur of medications and therapy. You try to comply with your care but honestly you are ready to sneak out of this place with or without anyone’s permission at this point. Sponge baths are getting old and the food here is awful to say the least. Horacio has been back daily to visit but still doesn’t quite seem like himself which has been nagging at you. Each time you approach the subject of work or Escobar he smoothly avoids the conversation, instead directing it back to your recovery.

At least being awake has some perks, your long-lost partners finally grace you with their presence during your second week of recovery. A small knock on your hospital room door has you looking up to see Javier Pena with his signature smirk in place and a sheepish looking Steve Murphy trailing behind. It’s awkward at first, the weight of everything that has happened hanging thickly in the air between the three of you. Then Javi introduces his ice breaker and you can’t help the laughter that bubbles from your lips as you look inside the cheap gift bag he and Steve had brought along and pull out a copy of ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’.

“It’s good to know you’re still the same assholes” you say through giggles, the laughter still causing a pulling pain in your left side.

“Yeah well, we couldn’t find a ‘What to expect if you’re a pregnant DEA agent’ version but hey, anything helps right?” he says while chuckling.

As the humor of the situation dies down, you feel a twinge of guilt for keeping everything from them. “Listen guys, I…” you start before Javi raises a hand to waive your response off.

“You don’t have to explain anything to us alright? A heads up would’ve been nice yeah but we’ve all probably done far more questionable things than fall in love and get pregnant at this point. Although to be fair I would like you to be concerned if I ever fall in love or Steve shows up pregnant.” And you both laugh as Steve flips Javi off from his place leaning against the wall of your room.

“All humor aside, I highly doubt I’m going to be with the DEA for much longer anyway guys” and even as you say it you can feel the mood shift in the room.

“That’s bullshit and you know it” Steve says and you glance at him in surprise. You honestly didn’t expect him to support you so vocally. “We have been the best damn team that they’ve put in place down here since this mess started and Messina trying to cover up her own failures by pushing you out is garbage” he says while Javi nods in agreement.

“Listen” Steve starts to say but is interrupted by his phone going off. He murmurs an apology and steps out into the hallway to take the call. You and Javi make eye contact and you decide that no one will probably be able to give you the no bullshit version of what is really happening in the outside world better than the man in front of you.

“We’ve been partners a long time now Javi” you start and you see him nod, eyeing you carefully as you continue, “and barring this” you gesture to your growing abdomen “we’ve never bullshitted each other right?” Javi regards you for a moment before nodding again. “So what’s really going on out there because Horacio is shutting me out of the loop and I feel like I’m flying blind here to be honest” you question in a matter of fact tone usually reserved for your field work.

Javi sighs and glances into the hallway then, you can still vaguely catch segments of a phone conversation Steve is having and know he won’t be rejoining you immediately. “Carrillo is going to kill me for talking to you about this you know that right?” he says while raising a brow and half-heartedly smirking at you.

“How about you let me worry about him and you fill your partner in for old time sake hm?” and you do your best to mimic his expression right back.

Another sigh escapes Javier’s lips as he wrings his hands together and tilts his head to the side before he begins speaking. “Listen…. Not everyone is of the opinion that the higher ups made the right call in all of this okay?” and he pauses as if deciding what exactly he should say to you next. His reluctance to disclose the information to you suddenly has anxiety welling up inside of you. What exactly has been going on?

You decide to fire away your most obvious burning questions first, “did you track down anyone responsible for the bombings? Do you know how exactly they pulled it off?”

“The short answer to that is no and the long answer is, like everything else in Colombia, it’s complicated” Javi offers and you can feel yourself grow a little angry at his answer. Why could no one suddenly answer your damn questions.

“Listen Javi I get that me being pregnant more obviously points out that I’m a woman in this field more than anything else probably ever has but I’m not a fucking child and I’m certainly not incapable of handling whatever is actually happening so for the love of god cut the bullshit!” you snap.

Javi stares at you for a moment, working his lower lip between his teeth before continuing. “Messina was pissed about being the last to know about you and Carrillo alright? She blew the whole thing out of proportion claiming that if anything came out about it, that it compromises the entire operation. She seems to think that it looks like you’ve been giving out special favors to the guy whose bed you’ve been warming and even though Steve and I both went to bat for you pointing out that you would NEVER do that, she took it all the way up the chain.” You can feel your jaw clench slightly as annoyance settles within you at Javi’s admission. Sure you hadn’t exactly played nice with all of Messina’s rules since she got here but you didn’t think you had ever done anything to warrant being thrown under the wheels of a moving bus quite so quickly.

“Carrillo was next, and it basically played out the same, just he had the unfortunate experience of being conscious for it. They gave him a good old pat on the back for the effort then said he was too close to the entire thing now and that they wanted to go in a different direction with leadership for continued operations of Search Bloc. They kept him on as second on an official note for his “expertise” on Escobar and unofficially because it was an unpopular decision to remove him among the men in Search Bloc. You know how loyal that team has been to him!”

Javi sighs again and you can see his frustration with the situation building. A swirl of emotions wells up inside of you as you take in all of this new information. Anger, frustration, annoyance, and guilt. Guilt that you hadn’t been able to stay away from Horacio and it had cost him his career. No wonder he seemed different when he came to visit you.

“The new guy is Colonel Martinez, he’s an okay guy but definitely not out for blood when it comes to Escobar. We are officially a by the book operation now. Right down to fancy old timey tactics like grid searches!” Javi lets out a humorless laugh with this, clearly exasperated by the turn of events.

Silence reigns in the room for a moment and you turn your head to the door, making sure that Steve is still occupied. “And everyone is going along with this? We let Escobar hit us and don’t make any moves to retaliate? Just like that?” you question knowingly.

Javier does stare at you for a moment longer than is comfortable for either of you now and you see an internal struggle play out on his face before he says “sure”. As if you bought the tagline he was selling for a single second.

Your nostrils flare in annoyance but right as you are about to ask more of Javi, Steve finally returns to the room. The conversation after that is stilted at best and Steve looks between you and Javi more than once, obviously sensing some underlying tension, but never questions the situation further. They stay a polite amount of time before making excuses and saying they hope to see you on the outside soon, Javi avoiding your gaze entirely during your goodbye.

By the time that Horacio makes his nightly appearance at your bedside later that evening, you have been stewing in the information Javier had left out in the open between these four walls all day. Your emotions have been all over the place throughout the day but after a near fall during a walk down the hall today setting your recovery process back, you have settled on being bitter about the situation. You don’t appreciate being treated like some fragile woman who needs to be kept in the dark like you haven’t walked in the darkness before as well and handled it just fine.

Horacio greets you with a smile and leans in to drop a kiss on your lips. You sigh as he presses his forehead to yours for a moment, almost forgetting your plan to confront him entirely. Finally, you bite your lip, deciding to dive headfirst into the issue and worry about the consequences later.

“Javier and Steve stopped by today” you say, looking into Horacio’s eyes directly, attempting to gauge his reaction.

“Yeah… Pena mentioned it” he says, and you pause not quite having anticipated that Javier would have actually discussed the visit with Horacio. Horacio takes advantage of throwing you off balance with his admission and continues on “I haven’t been avoiding talking to you about work to keep you in the dark mi amor…. I just want you to recover and not worry about Escobar for this one moment. He almost took you from me and I was powerless to stop it. I spent WEEKS while you drifted in and out of consciousness not being able to sleep or eat. I was scared and sad and angry all at once and I NEVER want to give him that power over me or you, ever again”.

The resolute Colonel that you knew all too well was the one having this conversation with you now. A part of you was glad to see him but a more selfish part of you that craved the intimacy of knowing Horacio caused you to reach out and grab his hand, wanting to feel connected with him at his admission.

One side of his mouth pulls upwards in a small smile as he gives into you and runs his fingers across your knuckles. “There are things that neither Javi nor I think that you should be involved in right now. For one, and I know you won’t like hearing this, but you ARE pregnant mi amor and too far along now to be out in the field. Also, if you have a chance in hell of saving your career, then you need to be above reproach now more than ever. Just know that everything that happens once you leave the safety of these walls is for the greater good. That we WILL get Escobar and he will pay for everything that he has done. Promise me that you understand that.”

His face has drifted closer to yours and he has taken ahold of your chin gently with the hand not currently holding onto yours. Mesmerizing dark eyes stare into your own looking for an answer you realize, and you nod slightly to show him that you understand. He leans in to peck your lips softly again, clearly having gotten the response he was hoping for.

All of the earlier fight you had built up for hours in your mind has dissipated in a matter of minutes and now, now you feel worry creep in from the corners of your thoughts. Horacio and Javier are clearly involved in something that they likely shouldn’t be, you have been able to glean that much from their cryptic conversations with you. While you appreciate them protecting you, the part of you that fought tooth and nail for respect as a DEA agent rails against them cocooning you away from this. You attempt to find contentment for now with the answers that you have been given, after all, there will be time when you are released to sort through whatever mess is brewing outside of this building.

You move over in bed then, encouraging Horacio to scoot in beside you, and dropping your head against his shoulder when he acquiesces without putting up a fight. You sigh contentedly before you find yourself smirking, remembering the present you had received earlier.

“They brought me a pregnancy book as a get well soon gift earlier, did Javi tell you that?” you say with a soft chuckle.

“Really?” Horacio says, looking to your bedside table that you had pointed to then and reaching out to grab the book.

He looks at the cover before pulling a face and what he utters next catches you completely off guard. “I bought this one already” he says quietly before setting it down and you feel your eyes bug out of your head for a second as you sit up and give him an incredulous look.

“What?” he says and the smile gracing his face now is definitely sheepish, showing the dimples you love so very much off perfectly.

“You. Colonel Horacio Carrillo bought a pregnancy book?” you say, still in disbelief.

“Why is this so surprising to you?” he retorts as if he’s just said the most natural thing in the world, though you aren’t imagining the flush that is creeping into his cheeks.

Your own smile grows then as your heart swells with love for this man. You shake your head gently as you reply “It shouldn’t surprise me I guess. You wouldn’t plan an operation without intel so why would this be any different?”

His smile grows as well as he leans in to brush his lips across yours, his hand coming up to massage the back of your neck as he holds you close to him. When you come up for air, you reach up and run a hand through his hair, a loving smile gracing your face.

“So are you reading this pregnancy book or is it still sitting untouched on your nightstand at home” you say then, genuinely curious about this situation.

“Oh I’ve been reading it every night querida and I think I’m maybe more prepared for this than you are at this point” he says in a cocky tone you have sorely missed. You bark out laughter then, the big belly hurting kind that has been absent from your life for too long now. An image coming to your mind unbidden of Horacio reading in bed at night with those reading glasses of his that turn you on in ways that you are sure that they shouldn’t. God you love this man.

You settle in against his side again when an idea forms in your mind. For a moment you consider not asking but the desire to have this moment together is just too strong. “Horacio?” you say quietly, his brown eyes flicking to yours almost instantly. “Hmm?” he hums in question.

“Read to me?” you say softly and a soft smile warms his features before he leans down to place a gentle kiss on your forehead while you look up at him.

“Of course, mi amor” he replies while grabbing the book once more from the table.

When you drift off that night its to the soft sound of Horacio telling you all kinds of things that you actually didn’t know. Like how big the baby is now and how much it grows every week. He tells you things that you can expect, like hopefully knowing what you are having soon and that before too long you might feel the baby moving. You smile gently as you are pulled into the comfort of sleep, somehow despite the setting and recent events, feeling more content than you perhaps have in your entire life.


	5. Chapter 5

Sacrifice, verb, to suffer loss of, give up, renounce, injure, or destroy especially for an ideal, belief, or end.

When you had joined the DEA, you had thought that you had a fairly decent grasp of the sacrifices that you would be asked to make. The lifestyle associated with this job could be demanding and many a good agent had ended up with at least one divorce under their belt throughout their career. Keeping this in mind, you had always kept a safe distance from serious relationships, and this had never presented too much of an issue for you either. You were comfortable on your own and weren’t looking for someone to try to tie you down to a life that you had no interest in having.

Even when you first came to Colombia, your focus had been on your work. Sure being in a brand new country and being immersed in a different culture could be alluring, but you had come here to do a job and hoped to further your career through the work that you completed here. What you hadn’t anticipated and would later learn the hard way, was that most things here in Colombia didn’t work out according to plan. That even with your carefully laid out plans for the future, you were probably doomed from the very start.

Horacio Carrillo had been a Major when he had sauntered into your life, all broad shoulders and serious expressions. Pena had made introductions between the two of you during your first 6 months in the country and while you would have had to have been blind not to notice how handsome the man was from the start, you maintained a professional distance as was expected of you. Your interactions in those early days limited mostly to an exchange of intelligence here or coordinating the logistical side of a joint operation with the Colombian authorities there. Just occasionally it all came together perfectly and you got to take down some sicarios together, life was good for everyone on those days.

Carrillo and Javier would go out for drinks and eventually you were trusted enough to be included in the ritual, always keeping the conversations light or work focused. Sometime in that second year in Colombia though, you became aware of the feeling that you were skating around something larger between yourself and the infamous Major. Sometimes near the end of the night, Javier would be off across the bar trying to close a deal with whatever woman had caught his eye for the evening and you would be left alone with the too serious man. In the beginning, silence would often invade the table between you, both of you unsure of what to say in the absence of having Pena as a buffer. Slowly though, it became a habit that you might stay and share another round or two even after Pena would disappear for the night.

Awkward silences gave way to deeper conversations and easy dimple filled smiles, which endeared this stern man to you in ways that you never would have anticipated. Eventually, against your better judgement, you found yourself looking forward to this time that you had alone with him. Pena was fun sure, but the second you caught his eyes wandering around the bar, a quiet anticipation would start to grow within you. One glance at Horacio over the rim of your glass would tell you that he felt the same. In those chaste secret minutes between the two of you he let you feel comfortable in your own skin in ways you hadn’t ever experienced, you felt free to be show off your duality as a DEA agent and a female. It was intoxicating.

In retrospect what happened next shouldn’t have been all that surprising, but the impact of it left you both reeling, unable to find solid purchase all the same. The night that everything changed would probably forever be burned within your mind, a memory which you had replayed for months after it’s occurrence.

An operation had taken Pena and yourself to Barranquilla to investigate a company being used as a front for cartel shipping through the port city. Given your lack of knowledge about the area, having a native Colombian that you could trust with you could never hurt your cause, so Pena had gotten clearance to take Major Carrillo along. Things had gone smoothly for the most part and your week there was successful, drinks in the spirit of celebration were practically a given when all was said and done.

You had decided to let loose for once on your last night in the city and had worn a dress out to meet Javier and Carrillo at the bar they had chosen for the evening. You knew you were playing with fire as you applied some light makeup in the mirror of your hotel room but you had honestly known that when you had packed this outfit for the trip as well. You had just lied to yourself then saying that it was purely a just-in-case outfit as if there would ever be an operational reason you would need a dress like that to ‘blend in’.

Javier let out a low whistle as you approached the table the men were already seated at and you threw your elbow into his side a bit in warning as you dropped into the seat next to his. You both laughed it off but as you looked up to greet the man across the table, you watched Carrillo’s jaw tick slightly, dark eyes meeting yours as he nodded at you in greeting, something unreadable flickering in his gaze. The evening had passed by painfully slowly after that, something hanging in the air around the table which was stifling as you nursed your drinks.

It was late when Pena had finally decided to ditch you, though to be fair he did ask if you would be alright getting back to the hotel on your own. You could still recall glaring as you reminded him that having boobs wasn’t a handicap and you would somehow manage to find your own way just fine. When he had disappeared out of the bar with a particularly good-looking woman a short time later without even a glance back, you weren’t entirely shocked.

What had caught you off guard were the nearly black eyes drinking you in from across the table, dark brown irises glinting with the dim lighting of the bar and something else that you still didn’t recognize. You had finished your drink awkwardly and had begun to almost regret your choice of outfit tonight, the change in your usual dynamic now palpable. Something you hadn’t anticipated to occur outside of your deepest fantasies happened then though and as you left the bar and began walking down the sidewalk rubbing your arms in the chilled night air, a jacket had been draped around your shoulders unexpectedly.

“You looked cold” his deep voice had said simply, as if that explained it away as a normal interaction the two of you would have. Your eyes had locked again with his then, his gaze zeroing in on your mouth as your tongue darted out to wet your lips.

If what happened next had gone any other way, you might have been so embarrassed that you actually had to request a new assignment. Instead when you had surged towards Horacio and caught his lips in a possessive kiss, he had matched your ferocity and had backed you into the bricks of a nearby building. His hands found their way to your waist, his fingers grasping at your hip bones as yours wound themselves into the shorter hair at the back of his neck. That first kiss was all teeth and pent up tension, the product of craving something you simply couldn’t have for far too long.

You had experienced awkward one-night stands in the past, not a lot of them but enough to know that typically you had to work to get a release out of it. The interactions of your past always filled with clumsy switches of positions to find the right feel or having to redirect a partner to do more or less simply out of a lack of knowing each other’s bodies. That first night with Horacio hadn’t been anything like that.

The two of you had taken full advantage of your relative anonymity in this city and had been all over each other on the way back to the hotel. A proverbial damn had broken, and your hands now itched to feel every inch of his skin, your lips tingled to nip at the underside of his defined jaw that you had spent hours staring at over the last few years. Once in the elevator of the hotel, your mouths had found their way back to each other and his hand had found its way under your dress, slipping beneath your underwear in a way that had you embarrassingly wet for him. It wasn’t until you were at your hotel room door getting ready to swipe the keycard eagerly that he had stayed your hand in his larger one. Your eyes had locked with his and you knew instinctually that this was a stepping off point into the unknown, that there would be no return trip to whatever you were before tonight. You had swallowed and nodded under his questioning gaze, wanting him to know that you needed, craved this just as much as he did.

Everything that happened behind that door was scorched into your memory. The way his large hands firmly grasped at your hips as you sank down onto him for the first time and how his eyes had snapped shut as he let out a low grunt at the initial feel of you surrounding him. The feeling of him mouthing at your neck when he had sat up and started meeting your downward grinding with his own thrusts, your fingers clawing at his shoulders as you chased the crescendo of your release. How your toes had curled when you finally fluttered around him and your surprise at his strength when he rolled you almost possessively onto your back and began thrusting in earnest. One of his hands had found its way between you and you had moaned wantonly when his thumb circled your mound, a tension in your low abdomen coiling tight before you came apart beneath him once more. He had buried his face in your neck as he came shortly after, his entire body tensed above you as you clung to him.

As your senses returned to you in the afterglow, you realized that this is what it felt like to be well and truly fucked, and not just in the literal sense. How could sex this good be with someone so forbidden? He had left not long after the two of you were done, and you hadn’t tried to stop him either, an awkward farewell muttered in the early morning hours at your hotel room door. Neither of you had drank enough to blame tonight on alcohol alone but you resolutely decided that if he wanted to use that as an excuse, you would readily let him.

By some miracle, life had returned to some level of normal after that too, for a while anyway. Neither of you addressed it and you even managed to go out a few times after work with Pena and Carrillo without any mention of what had happened in Barranquilla. You would have died rather than own up to just how many times you found yourself using your vibrator late at night after that, eyes screwed shut as images of Horacio replayed for you on loop. An insatiable need for something forbidden had invaded your quiet existence, a specter haunting you with it’s unfinished business.

Years later in a hushed late-night phone conversation from Madrid, Horacio would admit to just how many times he had taken himself in hand while thinking about that night too. He had been just as hooked on you but damn good at not revealing a thing. For months you had maintained that it was a one-time occurrence, only then it had happened again. After that it was a downhill slide for you both, the time between each encounter shortening, each of you growing softer with each other away from prying eyes. Without any formal discussion, the lines between you blurred and any hope of this remaining casual was lost.

You spent your days being professional strangers and stole away late at night to map each other’s bodies, worshiping every imperfection, rooting out every spot that elicited a moan or sigh. You spent hours lying awake talking when you should have been sleeping and you began to know this man like an extension of yourself. You realized that his stern exterior hid a passionate love for his country and its people which you found to be contagious. You learned what motivated him and he you, trading secrets in the dark that you had never shared with anyone. You fell hopelessly and recklessly in love and suddenly the sacrifices that you were being asked to make weren’t as clear cut as they used to be.

You blink as you realize that you’ve been daydreaming again, your mind running away from you, sparked to life by the all too familiar dress you had been pulling out of your closet. Too often you find yourself replaying how it had all come down to this. It had felt so damn good to be free from that the hospital that you hadn’t really considered what it would feel like for you on the outside now. Despite only a month passing, the world you reentered was vastly different from the one you had abruptly left and it unsettled you to not have a clear role in this new place that you had found yourself.

Yesterday you had sat in a conference room in Bogota and listened as your direct superiors here on the ground in Colombia had noted your every move since your assignment here. Your stomach had churned and you had played with your engagement ring idly for comfort, trying not to let the tears welling in your eyes fall as they essentially told that you that your career might as well be over. You weren’t entirely shocked but still it hurt that they were essentially using you as a scapegoat for everything that had gone wrong in the Colombian operation so far. They coldly outlined how you had ‘fed U.S. intelligence to agents of a foreign government’ and how you had ‘recklessly placed U.S. personnel at risk while fraternizing with agents of said government’. Never mind the fact that these were allegedly your allies, Americans had died on foreign soil and rather than pony up the resources to combat what had occurred, it was far simpler to punish one agent. The word suspension made you feel as though you had been dropped into icy water, the shock of it rendering you initially frozen before you floundered, desperately trying to break through the surface.

On paper, you were now officially a suspended DEA agent. In 6 months, you were to report back to your home department, and it went without saying that a desk job would await you there for probably what would be the rest of your career. Typically, the protocol for this would require you return to the states pending an official review by Washington but given your ‘extenuating circumstances’ you had been cleared to stay wherever you would prefer at this point. Although, Messina herself had seen fit to remind you as you turned in your gun and badge that you were essentially a private citizen staying here as a guest in Colombia now before she delivered the thinly veiled threat that she would make sure your visa privileges were revoked at the first whisper of you being involved in anything DEA related during your suspension. You had fallen asleep last night and prayed to wake up to the day having been entirely a fabrication of your recently overactive imagination, but no such luck had come your way.

You were supposed to be packing today to move out of your apartment and into Horacio’s house in Medellin, your house too now you supposed, at least according to Horacio it was anyway. That should be a good thing too honestly, after all, you had never imagined sharing a home with someone who loved you so profoundly. Anyone would be blessed to be making this leap with the love of their life, but now that it was happening for you? You spent all of your time worrying about what could go wrong. A more self-denigrating part of your mind nagging that maybe if you had spent more time being this worried before, things may have happened differently. But would you have even wanted them to?

You loved Horacio in ways you had assumed at one point in your life that you might not even be capable of and that was still terrifying to you, especially now that your impending motherhood was facing you down like a loaded weapon in your face. What if you gave yourself over to this relationship completely and it didn’t work out? What if you ended up raising this baby alone, were you even equipped for that? You didn’t even technically have a job now and you sure as hell hadn’t discussed what you were planning to do in the long term. Were you actually going to stay in Colombia and make a home for yourself permanently here? A multitude of questions constantly floated around inside of your busy mind, all of the energy you would typically devote to work now being devoted to incessant worrying. All of your carefully laid plans had shattered into a million pieces and the side of you that clung to those for reassurance was spiraling. You need to find something else to focus on before you lose your mind entirely.

Your hand instinctually finds its way to your bump as you think of the life growing inside of you. You are nearly at the halfway point of this pregnancy now and in the last few weeks have begun to feel what you are pretty certain is the baby moving. A pang of guilt rushes through you as you realize that you’ve been almost glad that Horacio can’t feel this yet. You have surrendered so much control of your life over to other entities at this point that having just this one thing be yours alone is honestly comforting to you.

It’s evening when Horacio arrives to help you carry boxes to his vehicle. The Colombian officers that have been assigned to guard you now help as well, even though there really isn’t all that much to take with you. Horacio reaches for your hand as he drives you to Medellin, his fingers brushing against the ring that you can now wear publicly without fear of further repercussions. You feel the corners of your lips turn upwards in a small smile involuntarily, at least some changes weren’t all bad.

As you enter the house that would now be your home, Horacio announces that he has a surprise for you.

“You really didn’t need to do anything Horacio, I’ve been here plenty of other times” you say tiredly, trying and failing miserably at not showing the physical and emotional toll the last few days have taken on you.

“Please querida? Just humor me” he says while cupping your cheek before grabbing your hand when you relent with a sigh.

He pulls you towards the stairs and into the main hallway where you know his bedroom is, only you’ve never been inside the room he stops outside of. You look at him questioningly as he encourages you softly to open the wooden door, genuinely curious now as to what this man of yours has been up to.

As the door opens and you take in the sight in front of you, your heart swells in your chest and you feel a lump form in your throat. The room has been freshly painted and a dark wooden crib sits inside. Your stunned silence apparently unnerves Horacio because he begins to ramble.

“I know it’s just a start mi amor but I wanted to surprise you. If you hate the crib, it’s fine really, my mother sent it over. It’s old because it was mine, but she seemed to think that you might like that?” He ends on a questioning note, seeming unsure of your response.

A thousand emotions slam into you simultaneously as you process everything that he is telling you. You lean into his chest and he gladly wraps his arms around you, warm hands rubbing your back as hot tears begin sliding down your cheeks unencumbered. You finally let go of the control you have been attempting to keep on your emotions for the last few days, feeling safe to fall apart here in Horacio’s arms.

For his part, Horacio seems unsure of what to do besides hold onto you. Sure you’ve cried in front of him before but never quite like this, never when he wasn’t even sure of what exactly had upset you in the first place or how he could possibly go about fixing it. For several minutes you continue crying before he finally turns your face towards him.

“What’s wrong cariño? Tell me what I can do to help you right now?” he says with a desperate edge in his voice.

You shake your head weakly, sniffling and wiping at your eyes as you try to pull yourself together. Another few minutes pass by in relative silence, reassuring hands rubbing your back and smoothing your hair, an occasional kiss dropped onto the crown of your head.

“It’s just been a lot Horacio” you finally say, deciding to be as honest as you possibly can. You don’t want any secrets between you. He stares at you and nods slightly, quietly waiting for you to continue as he takes one of your hands in his larger one.

“I just…. I don’t know anymore. I feel like I don’t have a job, or a country, or a place. Then to top it all off we’re going to be responsible for this other little being soon and it’s a LOT” you say quietly, hoping he understands.

You feel him shift before he takes your face between his hands. “It’s okay querida because you do have a place now and that is with me. Always.” He says confidently, dropping a kiss onto your nose before pressing his forehead into yours.

“Everything that has happened with Escobar and the DEA hasn’t been fair to you at all but in this house, in our HOME, with ME, I will always make sure that you have a say” and even as he utters that promise to you, you can feel yourself realizing how silly this has all been.

You love this man and he knows you. He knows what you are sacrificing for him. Your career for your relationship with him, your body to carry his child, your home for his in Colombia. The way he is staring at you irreverently right now tells you that he understands how monumental this is for you, that he feels exactly the same way.

You kiss him then and try to pour every pent-up emotion into the press of your lips against his. You break away and mutter an ‘I love you’ softly as you place another soft peck on his lips.

“And I you cariño, and I you” Horacio mumbles softly back. You disentangle yourself from Horacio then, finally walking carefully over to inspect the crib. It is old, but in good condition. You smile softly to yourself as you imagine Horacio as a tiny baby inside this very crib. Arms wind around you from behind and a soft kiss is pressed to your neck.

“So the crib can stay?” he question softly and you chuckle.

“The crib is perfect and can absolutely stay, thank you mi amor” you say with a nod and smile while one of his hands begins to gently rub your abdomen softly.

You turn in his arms and fix him with a questioning gaze while gesturing to the newly painted walls. “White was an interesting choice though, you didn’t want to take a guess at what we are having?” you inquire, genuinely wondering if he has put any thought into this.

He smiles back at you, looking sheepish. “I will be happy as long we are able to have a healthy baby querida, that’s all that matters to me honestly” and his tone is so earnest that you can feel your heart clench again. So many doubts had filled your mind in the last few days that it was astonishing how fast they could disappear when Horacio was back within arm’s reach.

“I think it’s a boy” you finally admit quietly, still not quite sure if you are supposed to admit to having any preference for a gender.

“Oh and why is that?” Horacio questions, fingers rubbing at your hips as he looks down at your small bump.

You shrug then a little embarrassed to be admitting this but continuing on nonetheless “I don’t know. I’ve had a couple of dreams and the thought has just kind of stuck I guess.” You chuckle a little then before adding “besides I was a strong-willed child and I don’t think that you are at all ready to deal with a little girl with that much attitude challenging you.”

You both laugh quietly then before Horacio shakes his head and smirks. “Well maybe it’s foolish to disagree with a mother but I think it’s a girl mi amor” he says softly, his hands reverently gliding over your bump then.

You shake your head gently at him as you place your hands over his and sigh. Horacio was right, this feels like home to you.

As the two of you lay in bed later in the night, a realization hits you.

“So…. You told your mother about us?” you ask quietly, preparing yourself for whatever might be mentioned next. You had discussed each other’s families sure but had never been in a place to ‘meet the parents’ so to speak. Your relationship had only existed in the shadows of these late hours until recently. You could only imagine what this very catholic woman thinks of her son getting a girl pregnant before marriage.

“This surprises you querida?” Horacio asks in return, turning to face you while propping his head up with an arm.

“Maybe?” you admit softly as you try to read his features in the dim street lighting which filters in through the bedroom windows.

“You are the mother of my child and will be my wife soon mi amor, I think it was past time that my mother knew about us” Horacio says and you know that he is right, it just doesn’t make it feel any more comfortable.

“Was she upset?” you ask then, trying not to show just how much it would bother you if she was.

He chuckles then, rolling onto his back and rubbing his hands across his face.

“At first a little yes” he admits but quickly continues with “but not anymore.”

You sigh as you attempt to process what he is admitting.

“Shockingly not as mad about the baby as I thought. More just mad that I let it become so serious with you and never told her” he admits quietly.

“I told her while you were still in the hospital unconscious and she was so worried that she brought meals here for weeks even after I told her not to. When I told her that you were being released, she brought the crib over instead of food. She wants to meet you mi amor.”

A warm sensation spreads through your chest at the pride in Horacio’s voice as he admits his mother wants to meet you. While it terrifies you it also thrills you that this woman who means so much to him would want to meet you despite the less than ideal circumstances surrounding your relationship. You scoot closer to Horacio and settle in with your head on his chest, slowly drifting off to sleep while listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart.

The next few weeks, you find yourself settling into a routine with Horacio. He goes to work each morning, and you try to take his advice and sleep in while you can. It’s a luxury you haven’t been afforded since your teenage years and you still aren’t quite accustomed to waking after it is already light out each day, but you are trying.

Being alone in this house is strange for you at first but you try to adapt, slowly rearranging some things and interspersing what few belongings you have with Horacio’s things around the home. It’s definitely not 100% to your taste yet, but you had bunked in worse. Your thoughts darken as you think of the Carlos Holguin School.

It was during one of these adventures in putting things away that you had wandered into Horacio’s home office. He had encouraged you to make yourself at home in every aspect of the house so you thought that you would make some space for your things in here as well. When you open a drawer to drop a few things inside, your sense of curiosity is piqued by the contents and you find yourself pulling out the folders inside. You would later wish that you had left well enough alone and never touched the folders at all, but the same internal workings of your mind that made you a good DEA agent were also often what made you unable to leave well enough alone.

One folder discusses the details of the bombing and you have to steel yourself as you process the carnage that the photos included detail. You are mentioned in the reports typed out inside and you find yourself slamming the folder shut after your eyes screen over your own name for the fourth or fifth time. You sit back in the office chair and take some deep breaths, running your hand over your abdomen as you consider dropping the entire thing and placing the folders back where you found them. You aren’t used to becoming so emotional over your work but you have never been the subject of your work before either.

The contents of the second folder make you knit your brows together in confusion initially. The nondescript brown folder is absent of any agency insignia unlike the others in the drawer. There are photos and addresses inside, lists of individuals, but no official reports or documents included. As you scan through the information and try to discern what these are connected to, you realize that you recognize one of these women in the photographs. The nurse who had assisted you at your first OB visit what seems like a lifetime ago is staring back at you from the page. Notes scribbled in unfamiliar handwriting underneath discuss a cartel connection through a brother. The next information you recognize in the folder discusses the girl, Maritza, who fed Pena the bad information which led up the bombing in the first place. The third picture is what captures your attention abruptly, a dead sicario you’ve vaguely seen before with a sign hanging from his body in a gruesome scene. The words ‘Los Pepes’ ringing familiar in your mind. You lay out the entire contents of the folder and cold realization washes over you as you realize that THIS is what Pena had been hinting at and Horacio had been avoiding. You would bet money that you could also now be sure of who exactly the two of them had been working with as well.

You haven’t by any means been certain but you had definitely started to suspect before this that Horacio and possibly your former partner are involved with the group ‘Los Pepes’ that you keep hearing about in the news. Every scrap of information you’ve been able to obtain from recent articles lining up far too neatly with the gaps in Horacio’s stories from work recently. Your thoughts are plagued by the calls that he takes at night sometimes when he thinks that you are asleep or the nights when he’s suddenly had to go with Javier to ‘meet contacts’, as if that were a normal activity for the two of them. You don’t at all feel comfortable with him seeking justice for what happened through means like these but whenever you’ve tried to broach the subject, Horacio clams up entirely, and your evenings become uncomfortably silent.

You tried speaking to Javier on the phone one day, but he too remained uncharacteristically tight lipped on the matter, vaguely reminding you that this isn’t your fight right now and that even discussing this much could get you in trouble. The back and forth that had ensued had only served to make you mad enough to hang up on him. Your only other avenue for intel at present would be to try to speak with someone in the rotation of officers that guard the house day and night, but you worry about who might report directly back to Horacio or god forbid the new Colonel in charge that you have been digging for information. Not being involved in decision making, strictly above board operationally or not, was frustrating and foreign to you.

You become a little angry now as you process what exactly you’ve just discovered, the part of you that Horacio had appealed to with his promises just weeks ago is outraged at the thought that he would lie to you. You debate on replacing the folders in the drawer and pretending that you hadn’t stumbled across these at all but ultimately realize that this isn’t something that you can leave alone. If Horacio loses his job or god forbid gets himself killed being involved in this, where would that leave you? You swallow a lump in your throat as you try to not consider how much that would tear you apart. How your world would crumble without him.

Hours later, Horacio returns home to find you waiting for him at the dining room table. Everything that you’ve found now organized across the table as you sit with your arms crossed. You slide the chair next to you out with your foot and silently invite him to have a seat. His jaw shifts and you see his nostrils flare, a tension settling itself across his shoulders. You don’t break eye contact with him as he approaches the table, daring him to challenge you as if you are the one who is wrong in this scenario and to your surprise he is the one who glances away first. As you sit in silence, you ready yourself for what may be a defining moment in your relationship. This was going to be a long night.


	6. Chapter 6

The silence that initially settles into the space around you is stifling. It fills every crevice of the room and swirls around the two of you, invading the close proximity with Horacio which would typically provide you with comfort. Horacio is eyeing you as if he is sizing up his adversary, a habit which you were only familiar with seeing at work prior to now, and typically not directed at you. You finally decide that it’s now or never, you put all of this together with the goal of finding out the truth and the best way to know that you weren’t making huge assumptions would be to hear it from the man in front of you himself.

“I just want to know what’s going on Horacio because if I’m being honest this looks bad…” you start before trailing off as Horacio pins you down with his dark eyes and his jaw works slightly, his mouth set in a thin line. 

He scoffs, “well it seems like if you had wanted to ask you wouldn’t have helped yourself to the things in my desk” he says darkly. His body is tense, like a panther ready to spring for the attack the moment it senses a weakness. 

Your voice takes on an edge as you bristle at his accusation “I DID ask you Horacio! Multiple times in fact, and every damn time I broached the subject that I could tell that you were involved in something you iced me out! Besides, YOU are the one who decided that this was my home now too, in case you’ve forgotten.” There’s a sudden flash in his eyes as your words hit him, something akin to the way lightning is a sign of the danger of a storm moving over the horizon. 

He stands and begins to pace the room “every fucking thing I’ve done is for you. To make this your home and all you do is toss the word around like it leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I don’t know what you fucking want from me!” 

It’s your turn to scoff now, determined to not let him stray from the subject “I want to know why someone as smart as you, whose righteous ass once turned down 6 million fucking dollars to give up his crusade against Escobar, is suddenly so willing to crawl into bed with Los Pepes even knowing what those men are capable of?” 

He turns to face you again, looking every bit the famously confrontational Colonel that you knew he was capable of being. “They tried to fucking kill you, to kill OUR child, and you have to ask why I’m doing what I’m doing? You are the one who assured me that you would understand but I guess that was just another false promise from a gringo huh?” The venom in his voice as he practically spits his words at you poisoning the very air around you.

You stand and round on him, pointing a finger into his chest as you feel yourself rising to his bait “oh don’t act like you are doing me some kind of god damn favor by being particularly brutal to your enemies! Like that hasn’t been a skill of yours since before we fucking met! I have ALWAYS understood who you are and why you do what you do but I never pegged you as a dirty cop.” 

As the words leave your mouth you almost regret them, watching the way his nostrils flare and his fists clench, his eyes flashing dangerously now. If Horacio were a lesser man, you would almost be afraid of what he might do next but the part of you that trusts this man with your life knows that he would never hurt you, that he would never cross that line. Your lip quivers anyway and you fold your arms over your chest, stepping back and attempting to find focus before continuing. Crying wouldn’t do you any good now.

“I want you to get out of whatever this is Horacio, before it’s too late, before you wind up fucking dead. You told me that in this house, in OUR home, that I would always have a say and as your partner that’s what I’m asking for. Treat me as a fucking partner like I deserve and listen to what I’m telling you when I say that this leads nowhere good. Revenge is not the way we get Escobar.”

You back away further and turn, moving around the table to put space between you and give Horacio a moment to hopefully process what you are saying to him and see reason. When you turn back to face him though, he still looks inherently pissed. 

“I don’t think you have any fucking idea how we are going to get Escobar” he says suddenly, letting out a humorless laugh as he shakes his head condescendingly at you. “You have lived such a privileged gringo life that you have no clue what life will be like for you now if we don’t change things. You think the bombing was bad? It doesn’t even scratch the surface of what these assholes are capable of and I thought that you understood that! They’ve made it absolutely clear that they know all about you and our relationship, about the fucking baby” his voice cracks slightly as he gestures to the files you had already looked through on the table.

“Next time they might actually get to you directly too. Take you apart piece by piece, kill our child, send a real message. Is that what you want? To lay down and play house like sheep until that day? Because I didn’t think that the woman that I fell in love with was even capable of being that fucking naïve.” His words hit just the nerve he had intended as well and you do feel tears forming now, your eyes stinging involuntarily as you try to blink them away. 

You move to sit down again, cradling your head in your hands and wondering where exactly this conversation had gone off the rails this wildly. “I don’t want to fight Horacio” you finally say quietly, glancing up at where he still stands with his hands on his hips, his jaw locked tight.

He rubs a hand over his face in apparent frustration “Really? Because this seemed like you prepared all day for a fight! I’m trying so damn hard to protect you, so you can stay safe and alive and all I get is constant push back. You say you want to be partners then start fucking trusting me like I’m your partner!” With that Horacio moves back towards the doorway, collecting his badge, service weapon, and keys off of the table near the door as he goes.

You panic and rise “where are you going?” you ask, staring at his back. He pauses with the door pulled open and without turning says over his shoulder “out”. He slams the door as he goes, and you finally let the tears you had been desperate to hold in fall. “Fuck” you whisper to the now empty space as you break down. 

Its late when you do finally give up on waiting for him to return and go to bed. You lay awake for hours before drifting off, your argument replaying on a loop through your mind. Your chest aches as you wonder if that is how Horacio really sees you, as some ‘ungrateful gringo’ that he’s saddled with for life now. When you wake, you come to the cold realization that he never returned home last night. A million reasons float through your mind and you try not to fear the worst as you get ready for the day. The regret you feel for your approach to the situation now leaving a bitter taste in your mouth. You finally cave and call the base just to make sure that he is safe and are relieved when they confirm that he there and is in a meeting for you. 

You sigh as you end the call and you wonder if Horacio will still be coming to your OB appointment today as he had promised. It’s your first since your evaluations in the hospital and at almost 20 weeks they had told you that you could finally learn the sex today if you wanted. You had let yourself almost become excited about this aspect of your pregnancy in the weeks since your release from the hospital, playfully bantering with Horacio about who would be right like it honestly mattered. You had already felt your love grow for your child regardless with each passing day, with every flutter in your abdomen a little more of your apprehension about your impending motherhood melts away. 

As your ever-present guards drive you to your visit, you wonder if maybe Horacio will be meeting you there since he hadn’t come home. A part of you feels pathetic for feeling slightly lost without him when you had just started to adjust to life with him honestly, but you find that you can’t help it. You distract yourself by watching absent mindedly out of the car windows as you travel through the city and note the abundant Christmas decorations that seemed to have appeared on the buildings around you overnight. You try to tamp down your expectations about that too, the thought of getting to celebrate Christmas with Horacio this year had been something you hadn’t even considered until recently but that you had found yourself looking forward to. You hadn’t had a real Christmas celebration in years, not counting the year that the Murphy’s had invited you and Javier to join their festivities. Surely one argument wasn’t going to put a stop to any of the plans that you had been making. 

You try to push the argument from your mind entirely as you reach the office only to realize that Horacio isn’t waiting for you as you had hoped, deciding to give the baby your full attention for now and worry about what Horacio’s absence might mean later. You wish that honestly wasn’t easier said than done. The new OB is kind and attempts to put you at ease in the office, even speaking English with you which is comforting in a way that you hadn’t anticipated. Surprisingly after all that you’ve gone through since finding out about this pregnancy, he assures you that you continue to be having a completely healthy pregnancy. When it’s time for your ultrasound this time though, your heartbeat speeds up for an entirely different reason than it did previously. 

You realize as the cold gel is being applied to your abdomen that you are excited to see your child this time around, that the idea has since become far more tangible for you and your attachment to the child growing within you is stronger than you had ever anticipated it could be this early on. A few months ago the idea of sharing your body with a tiny developing being was so far outside of your comfort zone that you would have laughed at anyone who would have suggested that you might actually come to enjoy it. The joke was on you now. 

When the grainy black and white image of your baby appears on the screen this time, you couldn’t have stopped the surprise tears that form in your eyes even if you had wanted to. The baby is larger and more proportionate than before, which shouldn’t surprise you but yet it somehow does. Little formed arms and legs wiggle around and you can make out facial features like the nose and mouth now. You are smitten with the sight of the life that you are housing. The doctor makes some notes as he glides the wand over your abdomen before finally asking if you would like to know the sex today. You freeze as you realize that you do but that ultimately it doesn’t feel right to find out without Horacio here. As hurt and angry as you are, he deserves to have this moment. “Can I have the results put into an envelope instead? I would like to find out with my fiancé” you say quietly. 

When you return home, it is already late afternoon and there’s still no sign that Horacio has returned to the house. You try and fail at not being disappointed by this. When he still hasn’t returned by nightfall, you break out all of the distraction stops, reading, watching tv, satisfying your endless cravings by snacking, all to no avail. Eventually you slip into a fitful sleep despite the bed feeling too large without him there, nightmares of the bombing and of losing Horacio plague your rest. 

Three days pass like this and you finally start to process that Horacio is perhaps more angry than you had originally accounted for. You had thought, hoped, that the quick burn of his anger would fade and that he would want to talk everything out. You’ve debated on calling him at least a dozen times, thought about showing up to the base at least a dozen more. Ultimately, you haven’t done either of those things, afraid that pushing him might only serve to widen the gap that’s appeared between the two of you. A crevice has opened in the earth between you and suddenly you find yourselves on opposite sides, where there had once been only one unified path, you now see yours and apparently, he sees his. 

Five days in and the anger over Los Pepes is leaving you, you just want the man that you love to come home. It feels as if a black hole has opened up in this space which you’ve been acclimating to thinking of as home and that nothing you do seems to have the ability to fill it without his presence. You decide that if he comes home, you will let the whole thing go. Not because you agree or like whatever darkness he is involved with, but because you love Horacio and he is the partner you’ve chosen, you want to trust him and his judgement. You want to trust that he will know if he’s gone too far, that he will know when the means stop justifying the ends.

A week passes and you start thinking in extremes despite your best efforts. If things don’t work out with Horacio will you go back to the U.S.? You could only imagine how the phone call to your family back home will go when you have to tell them that not only are you suspended from your dream job but that surprise you are expecting as well. Would Horacio even let you go or would he want you to keep his child in the country? What would a shared custody pattern of sending your kid to another country for summers and holidays even be like? You are physically ill at the thought. 

You shake your head as you realize that you are letting your thoughts get away from you, the uncertainty of your situation driving your analytical mind slowly insane. You aren’t the type of person to sit back and wait without some kind of contingency plan in place. 

Nine days after your argument with Horacio and you have started to fill your time with an abundance of activities and distractions, none have provided you with true relief, but it feels good to be active. Your rounded belly now pokes out of your larger shirts in an unmistakable way that alerts others of your condition and you cave and use your guards to visit some clothing stores. The larger pants and shirts you buy remind you of the day that Horacio had laughed at you for crying when you had realized that your pants would no longer zip. The way that he had wrapped his arms around you, hands resting on your growing abdomen as he chuckled into your hair and murmured about you being beautiful was burned into your mind. 

Two weeks, you hadn’t been two weeks without hearing from this man since before you had been sleeping together. Even when he was half a world away in Spain he had found time to call, sometimes he even wrote letters like the old romantic that he secretly was. You still reread those letters sometimes when you are alone, your heart clinging to his every word and promise for solace in these uncertain times. 

You had scrubbed the house clean, attempted to hone your cooking skills and wound up sending the leftovers home with the guards watching over you, you even convinced them to take you out again so that you could start buying some baby things. Apparently, nesting is a real thing although you would deny until your last breath that you might actually be enjoying this. A part of you worries over dipping into your savings when your future career options hang by a thread but a bigger part of you feels the need to make sure that your child is nurtured. Plus, it’s almost Christmas now and although you had never been super big on making a huge deal out of the holidays, it feels like this is just the beginning of spoiling this kid around this time of year. You already found yourself imagining years when you might get to see a tiny face light up in wonder because Santa had visited. 

The night after your shopping trip you are sitting in the future nursery, feet tucked into the chair you had purchased while you read one of the many baby books that Horacio had been collecting, when you hear the front door open downstairs. Your heart skips a beat and you struggle to calm yourself. You hadn’t heard any sounds indicating a struggle outside with the guards but you freeze while listening anyway, alert for sounds that anything is amiss all while forming a plan to get to the gun Horacio kept in your bedroom. When it’s Horacio that finally appears in the doorway, you should be relieved, but you can only bring yourself to stare. He looks distraught and when he stumbles forward and drops to your feet, burying his head in your lap, you can only slowly rest a hand onto his back in your momentary shock.

When he begins to shake, you realize that he is crying and you feel hot tears rolling down your own cheeks. You flounder at first, not sure of what to do in this situation, the feeling of Horacio clinging to you as he falls apart overwhelming to you. You finally settle for carding your fingers through his wavy hair, murmuring softly to him that you are here and that it’s okay, you aren’t going anywhere. When he slowly calms but doesn’t move you finally decide to venture to ask what is going on.

He doesn’t move or reply at first and you wonder if maybe he hadn’t even heard you. Then his voice breaks through your thoughts, rough with emotion as he mumbles “they killed her”. 

You blink, “they killed who my love?” you say with confusion laced into your tone. 

Horacio lifts his head to look at you then and the broken look on his face is disturbing, your heart aches to fix whatever problem had caused this. You reach out to cradle his face and he pushes his cheek into your palm eagerly seeking comfort from you, his sad chocolate eyes closing, dark lashes splayed across his still wet cheeks. 

"You were right” he murmurs softly, sniffing before he continues “I let them go too far”. 

Fear squeezes your insides as you consider what too far might actually be for Los Pepes, did a line even exist that they wouldn’t cross? These men were arguably bigger monsters than the gargantuan one that had taunted you and most of the world for years now, leaving countless atrocities in his wake while he vied for wealth and power. 

You move forward on the seat to be closer to Horacio and listen intently as the proverbial flood gates open. Horacio tells you everything, how they had approached him through Javi and the two of them couldn’t turn down the information they had provided. How they had been the ones to root out the nurse with cartel connections who had turned over your records from the first OB office and that he thought that by helping them that they could actually make Escobar pay for once.

When he tells you about Murphy’s tip that Blackie had a pregnant girlfriend in Envigado, you are already starting to piece together where this twisted tale will lead. What takes you off guard is the look of absolute devastation that crosses his face as he tells you that while looking down at that poor dead pregnant woman tonight, his heart had shattered for the innocent life lost before even taking it’s first breath. How he could only think of getting back to you and the baby so that he could hold you while begging for forgiveness. 

You are the one who is crying now and you wrap your arms around Horacio, “I forgive you my love but promise me that you will never leave like this again. I can do this without you but I don’t want to” you say quietly through your tears.

“Never again mi amor. I’m done with Los Pepes I swear it, I told Javi that I’m out tonight” he says, his voice sounding sure in a way that makes you trust in his words.

He pulls back and looks at you then, brushing tears off of your now wet cheeks with his thumbs and smiling gently at you, his eyes still glistening. “You are so beautiful” he says softly, reverently as he stares. You pull a face, knowing full well that this man is crazy and you look tired, the glow factor that you had heard pregnant woman brag about was lost on you still. 

“It’s true mi amor. Even making sour faces like that you are still one of the most beautiful creatures that I have ever laid eyes on and I thank my lucky stars every day that our paths crossed.” His words make you smile and roll your eyes playfully. 

Horacio toys with the ring on your finger before looking at you seriously for a moment. “Marry me?” he says, softly holding your hands in his own. 

You laugh then “Did you hit your head my love because I’m pretty sure I already agreed to that and that’s what got us here in the first place!” 

Horacio just shakes his head slightly and smirks “No smartass, I mean, what are we waiting for? Let’s get married.” 

You freeze, realizing his intentions all at once and your surprise must be evident on your face because Horacio is following up his initial statement with “Tomorrow. Let’s go get married and then let’s get out of here for a while. Just us.” 

The way he says it so simply like the two of you can do just that so easily has you taking a deep breath and trying to figure out how you can possibly patch all of the holes in the tiny life raft that is Horacio’s grand plan for the two of you to escape this harsh reality. 

You decide that humor is the best route to go with, not wanting Horacio to think that this has anything to do with being willing to marry him. “Why the sudden rush to make an honest woman out of me? You know no one else is going to be trying to tie down a woman whose 5 months pregnant right?” you say while chuckling at the ridiculousness of that thought. 

It surprises you when he doesn’t back down and instead doubles down on his offer “querida life is too short and I want to spend every second of it that I can enjoying the privilege of being your husband. Please?” His earnest way of asking is disarming and it’s crazy but you want nothing more than to call yourself his wife too so ‘screw it’ you think while tossing aside all of the reasons why it might be better to wait. 

“You won’t be disappointed having a privileged gringa for a wife?” you say quietly, selfishly needing him to quiet your last insecurities before you say yes. 

He looks away then before squeezing your hands in reassurance, “I was angry cariño. I never should have said that and I sure as hell don’t think that.” He meets your eyes again as he finishes, and you can see the honesty behind his words shining back at you.

He quickly follows up with a question of his own that you should have anticipated “you think you could handle being married to a dirty cop?” And you can see his slightly dejected look as he says it, showing you that your words had hit home with him as well. 

You shake your head, getting his attention by looking him directly in the eyes as you reply. “I wouldn’t be here if I thought for a second that was true Horacio. You are a good man and I am lucky to call you mine, our child will be lucky to call you daddy” you say reassuringly to him.

He smiles blindingly at your words and you finally make your decision, as if you ever could have chosen differently, “Okay” you say softly. 

“Okay?” he questions, searching your face for the truth behind your words before allowing himself to react. 

“Okay!” you repeat while chuckling, suddenly feeling giddy at the thought that you will be Mrs. Horacio Carrillo by this time tomorrow. It’s inherently silly and you feel like a ridiculous schoolgirl who wants to go write that across a notebook page in swirly cursive gel pen but you can’t find it in you to care. You want this and he’s right, why wait? The world isn’t getting any safer no matter how much you fight the good fight so why not latch onto the happiness life is handing you while you can. 

You help Horacio strip out of his uniform that night, reacquainting yourselves with each other’s bodies in the darkness of your bedroom. He handles you with a new tenderness and kisses away your insecurities about your changing body, worshipping your new curves with his hands and mouth gently. His fingers brush against your new scars and he softly murmurs promises that they shall be the last you ever receive. When he finally slips inside of you, you both gasp, the world stops as you revel in the feeling of being joined with him again. He sets a slow pace and the two of you happily get lost on the shores of each other’s bodies. You drift off after feeling safer in his arms than you have in ages and the dreams that have haunted your resting hours don’t come anywhere near you that night. 

You wake before him in the morning, sliding out of bed quietly and pulling on one of his shirts. When Horacio finds you a while later you are too busy to notice him right away, trying to be quiet while making breakfast for him in the kitchen. You shriek when arms slide around you from behind and he chuckles while kissing the side of your neck. You slap his arms and chide him softly, “I could have burned myself you know!” you feign outrage. It feels so damn good to have him home.   
The two of you eat at the dining room table and talk over your game plan for the day. You find that you are filled with easy smiles and soft laughs as he can’t seem to stop touching you. Constantly rubbing a hand over your thigh or giving one of your hands a squeeze with one of his. As you are cleaning up after you hear Horacio call your name from the other room and you pop your head through the doorway to see what he wants.

“What’s this?” he says while holding up the envelope with the OB offices information on the outside. You realize then that you had completely forgotten setting that aside, not wanting to tempt yourself to peek at the contents while Horacio was gone.

“Oh! I totally forgot about that actually… it’s umm… it’s the results from the ultrasound I had a few weeks ago with the new OB” you smile sheepishly as you see him suddenly look very interested with the envelope in his hands.

“You mean you found out already?” he asks quietly, poorly concealed heartbreak leaking into his tone.

You chuckle and shake your head “no actually, I didn’t. You were being an ass by not showing up and for sure didn’t deserve it but I didn’t want to find out without you. It didn’t feel right” you shrug. 

He walks over to you then, wrapping you in a tight hug and dropping a kiss on the crown of your head. “I don’t deserve you, mi amor” he says.

“Yeah well I wasn’t totally blameless. It wasn’t fair to ambush you” you admit.

After embracing for a moment Horacio pulls back and waves the envelope at you playfully. “You want to open it now?” he asks, eyes twinkling with the excitement behind his question.

You pretend to debate for a moment, and he shoves your shoulder playfully, already busy opening the end of the envelope. You both move to sit down, and Horacio reaches into the envelope, pausing before pulling out the contents. You reach out and squeeze his arm gently, silently urging him to make the leap. 

When the ultrasound image is finally out and held in front of you both, you can’t help the happy giggle of surprise that leaves you as you process the words written in Spanish across the note on the image. 

‘Hi mommy and daddy! I’m a girl!’ 

You had never been happier about being so completely wrong in your entire life. You wipe at the tears forming in your eyes and smile as you turn to look at Horacio’s face. He is frozen, mesmerized by the black and white image of his daughter in front of him, his fingers softly brushing over the tiny face in the image. Your heart expands in your chest with an overwhelming love for this man, every time you think that you couldn’t love him more, he just has to go and do this to you. 

You lean in and kiss his cheek, gently nuzzling at his jaw as you cuddle into his side. “Are you happy my love?” you ask softly.

Horacio looks at you then, his eyes glassy and his smile genuine as he nods, words seeming to fail him. He sniffs and drops a quick kiss on your lips “I’ve never been happier in my entire life cariño.” 

The two of you settle in on the couch as you tell him about your appointment, filling him in on how big she is now and everything the doctor had said about her growth so far. It strikes you suddenly, that your life had never felt more complete than it did right at this moment, here with your little growing family on this couch. You grin as Horacio talks happily about how excited his mother will be to have a little girl around to spoil, and you read between the lines with him well enough to know that she isn’t the only one. Horacio rests a hand over your abdomen gently as he speaks and your imagination runs away with your own hopes for the future, all of them surrounding the mental image you have of a beautiful dark wavy haired girl with a wild way about her that’s bound to drive her father crazy. 

After a few minutes, the conversation dies off and Horacio gets up and reaches out a hand to pull you off of the couch and into his arms. He kisses you gently and smiles playfully at you before giving your rear a squeeze playfully “let’s go get married mi amor” and nothing has ever sounded more appealing to you. As the two of you shower and get ready, you slip into one of your nicer sundresses, nothing fancy but it’s white and flowy enough to still fit. You catch Horacio’s eyes in the mirror as he puts a tie on, the small smile on his face as he regards you leaving your heart beating ever so slightly faster with anticipation. 

You had imagined your wedding day when you were younger as probably a lot of girls do. What would your husband be like, what would you wear, who would be there, the list of things for a young girl to gush about is almost absurd. The reality is nothing like you had dreamt and somehow all the more perfect for it. You marry Horacio Carrillo at a courthouse in the middle of the week while 5 months pregnant with a daughter you had never imagined you would get to have. You cry and he makes fun of you gently while pretending his own eyes aren’t glassy with unshed tears. Afterwards he buys you ice cream and your ‘reception’ consists of the two of you cuddled up at home eating it straight out of the tub with spoons. Somehow the whole day is absolute perfection, and you find that you wouldn’t change a thing that has happened even if you could. Everything that the two of you had sacrificed and would continue to, it was all worth it. Maybe something beautiful had come out of the drug war after all.


End file.
